COA starts probe on ‘missing’ DPWH vehicles

The Commission on Audit (COA) has started its own probe on the whereabouts of hundreds of vehicles of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) that are suspected to be in the hands of unauthorized personnel.

DPWH-COA resident auditor Manolo Sy said an accounting is now underway, parallel with a separate probe by investigators on the department’s P150 million vehicle repair anomaly.

"We have started collecting the memorandum of receipts for all these vehicles. Many of these cars may not later be accounted for," Sy told The STAR.

Sy said there was a clear attempt to cover-up the anomalous issuances of these cars, as their 1999 accounting showed the DPWH had only 300 vehicles.

"But now records would show that there are actually 1,000 cars under DPWH. I do not know why these were concealed from us," said Sy.

The COA investigation extends to those vehicles given to DPWH as part of foreign-funded projects, including one by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1999. The P150 million vehicle repair scam in 2001 involved only 521 cars, of which 150 are unaccounted.

Sy said the ADB, which financed a $692 million project in 1999, discovered that 17 of its 170 cars issued found their way to the hands of people who had nothing to do with the project.

As a result, the ADB ordered the recall of the 17 vehicles and gave them to authorized engineers.

But after the projects were completed, the cars were again misappropriated.

"Good thing that these vehicles were found being used by DPWH personnel themselves. But the problem was there was no proper turnover and there was no way of tracing the vehicles to them," said Sy.

Of these cars, it’s likely that three will no longer be traced.

Probers said that a Toyota Corona (SAM-556) and a Mitsubishi L-200 pickup (SFG-437) have been reported stolen although its owners are yet to furnish the DPWH their respective police reports.

The third vehicle, however, was only reported newly stolen but its description was not immediately available.

"We are still checking the claims. We do not know when it was stolen because we are not provided the police reports," said a STAR informant. "It will all depend on the police report if they (users) will be cleared of any liability."

The 1974 Toyota Corona model was acquired in 1978 under a Japanese assistance program grant while the pickup van is a 1999 model acquired by the DPWH under the ADB loan.

"In several instances, we only find out of these vehicles’ whereabouts after we are given repair billings. As it turned out it (vehicle) had an accident," said a DPWH insider.

Investigators haven’t yet verified if the three stolen vehicles were among those in the repair scam.

Five other cars, though not in the repair anomaly, were earlier found to have been issued to Sen. Ramon Revilla, Agusan del Norte Rep. Edelmiro Amante, and three other non-DPWH personnel.