Thursday, January 10, 2008 NGO asks ombud to probe VSMMC
A NON-GOVERNMENT organization has asked the anti-graft office to investigate alleged procurement anomalies at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City.
The losses were estimated at P150 million, said the Bagong Lampara Foundation Inc., represented by Tito Villagonzalo.
Villagonzalo said the alleged anomalies were first uncovered by lawyer Eva Cabrera, a Commission on Audit (COA) auditor, in 2006 but have yet to be addressed.
“She (Cabrera) now gets death threats,” Villagonzalo said in his letter to Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol that was also sent to Sun.Star Cebu yesterday. The paper published a series of stories last July about the audit.
The Bagong Lampara Foundation Inc. said it is an accredited corruption prevention unit of the anti-graft office.
Villagonzalo, citing the COA audit, asked the anti-graft office to look into why VSMCC earned only P66 million in 2006 when based on “income per bed,” the hospital should have earned P100 million.
He also asked the anti-graft office to look into why P1 million was spent for employees’ overtime pay in VSMMC when there was no indication that overtime was necessary.
He also wants the anti-graft office to investigate why, of the P80 million worth of supplies procured by the hospital in 2006, only P13 million underwent bidding.
Villagonzalo also asked the anti-graft office to look into the validity of COA’s findings that the hospital spent over P708,750 for 1,050 hospital bed sheets when a set with a better quality would have cost only P450,000.
He also wants the agency to investigate why, based on the COA report, cash advances in the hospital were made beyond the ceiling, why the hospital pharmacy failed to make reports of their sales, and why professional fees weren’t turned over to the Bureau of Treasury and were instead used to pay for employee benefits.
Villagonzalo also accused a nurse of referring poor patients to private clinics owned by friends and asked the anti-graft office to make her undergo a lifestyle check, together with another VSMMC official. (KNR)
