Monday, January 21, 2008 Ombud summons DOTC to report on registrations
THE anti-graft office wants a copy of the report supposedly showing that undervalued and misde-clared cars do get registered at the Land Transportation Office (LTO).
“I’ve directed AO (Assistant Ombudsman Virginia) Santiago to request for the papers (and) to look into the basis of their findings,” Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol said.
The report, prepared by four investigators from the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC), is another matter officials from the LTO 7 may be asked to answer for.
The Office of the Ombudsman for the Visayas is still waiting for the LTO regional office’s comment on the August 2007 letter of the Cebu Auto Dealers’ Association (Cada).
The letter, originally sent to Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, details the supposed discrepancy between the number of vehicles sold by dealers in the region for 2006 and the number of vehicles granted registration papers by the LTO for the same period.
The DOTC team, which came to Cebu last Monday, “initially confirmed” the presence of misdeclared and undervalued cars in the region.
These cars are being used supposedly because they have been granted registration documents by the LTO.
P400 million
DOTC’s own investigators said the government lost about P400 million in expected revenue from the vehicles when the Bureau of Customs failed to collect the necessary importation taxes as the vehicles entered the Port of Cebu.
Cada earlier decried the discrepancy between the number of cars that they have sold in a given period and the number of “new” vehicles registered with the LTO.
Based on the LTO’s count of registered vehicles, the number of newly registered private cars-among them utility vehicles and sports utility vehicles-is five times higher than the accumulated number of cars sold by the Chamber of Automotive Dealers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi) members.
Sports vehicles
For example, the LTO pegs the total number of newly registered cars in Central Visayas at 3,584 private cars and 21,637 utility and sports utility vehicles in 2006.
Campi’s tally, however, shows only 1,686 private cars and 3,374 utility and sports utility vehicles sold and given new registrations in the region.
Most of the vehicles with new registrations were old models and were not sold by any of the legitimate car distributors.
Also, the same vehicles were sold below dealer prices, indicating that importation taxes may have been dispensed with, otherwise, the price wouldn’t have been so low. (KNR)
