Sunday, August 19, 2007 6 towns forgo public bidding By Minerva B. Gerodias Sun.Star Staff Reporter
SIX towns in the Province bought supplies and other items in 2006 without conducting a proper public bidding.
They shopped instead.
Government auditors questioned the use of shopping as “a usual mode of procurement” in the towns of Tuburan, Madridejos, San Francisco, Pilar, Tudela and Tabuelan.
Although shopping is allowed under the New Government Procurement Act, it is only for special circumstances: 1) when there is a contingency requiring an immediate purchase, for no more than P50,000; and 2) it needs equipment not available in the procurement service but doesn’t cost more than P250,000. Also, the procurement must not result in splitting contracts.
Section 48 of the Government Procurement Reform Act provides that agencies and offices shall adopt public bidding as a general mode of procurement.
But in Tuburan, the auditors noted that last year, shopping was the primary mode of procurement because of the absence of an Annual Procurement Plan.
Discounts
This deprived the government of the lowest possible price or discounts that could have been tapped had the procurement procedures been observed.
Also, the purchase of supplies was done by each department and not consolidated, again depriving the local government of potentially huge discounts.
What happened in Tuburan was also observed in San Francisco, Pilar, Tudela and Tabuelan.
In Madridejos, most of purchases were also made without public biddings.
In most cases, government auditors said, the purchase requests and orders were split so that the amount would meet the conditions under shopping.
COA recommended that the bids and awards committees of these towns stop the practice of shopping and restore bidding as the primary mode of procurement.
An Annual Investment Plan should also be prepared to guide local governments.
Advances
Auditors also warned local governments against granting advance payments for contracts.
Although the advance payments were deducted from the succeeding claims and, except for one, were fully liquidated, the practice still violated Section 338 of the Local Government Code.
This section states that no money shall be paid for any contract under which no services have been rendered yet.
COA told officials to stop granting advance payments, otherwise they will be held personally liable for the amounts released.
Meanwhile, San Remigio, Cebu Mayor Mariano Martinez said he will strictly enforce the prohibition on new cash advances for those with unliquidated amounts.
His town is one of 11 municipalities that state auditors said continued to grant cash advances to officials and employees with an outstanding balance, despite existing rules.
But Martinez, in an interview with Sun.Star Cebu, said the COA report stating that San Remigio has more than P1 million in unaccounted cash advances may no longer be completely accurate at this time.
Records
He said the report was for the town’s 2006 operations, and he is certain that several persons in the previous already liquidated their cash advances. He was sure the money was spent for official travels by the persons concerned.
“I know for a fact that they were on official travel. These are just a matter of inefficiencies in documentation or keeping receipts,” said Martinez.
He admitted, though, that there is one record that has been carried over the years as the person concerned, a former mayor, already died.
He said they already discussed this with the COA and the former mayor’s son, who is now an incumbent councilor, so they can find ways to clean their records.
“But all the others are in the process of liquidating,” said Martinez. (With JPM)
