Andaya should answer for overshoot of ballot printing - Comelec

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections said yesterday that the new National Printing Office director retired Army Col. Manuel Andaya should answer for the incompetence of his agency on the printing of the ballots to be used in the nationwide barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

Election Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said the Comelec would investigate how the NPO overshot by five percent the spoilage in ballot printing which used to have only two or three percent spoilage rate before Andaya’s term.

The NPO recently requested for an additional 300 reams of paper to compensate for the spoilage in ballots printing for the election which entails an additional cost of P14.5 million.

“It’s P14.5 million of public funds lost to gross incompetence. I think the public will be interested because this is the people’s money. I think we have to look into this,” Sarmiento said.

He said the poll body is geared on forming a committee that will look into the ballot spoilage which the NPO’s Bids and Awards Committee chairman Ferdinand Rafanan said the highest spoilage rate in the NPO’s printing history.

The NPO top post has been criticized for being occupied by former or retired military officials.

The NPO is often figured in the news as a low-key agency but one of the top graft-ridden government agencies, Rafanan said.

The Ombudsman is now investigating the agency for allegedly sub-contracting out printing contracts contrary to the procurement law. Under Republic Act 9184, sub-contracting is an offense.

Executive Order 378, the charter of the NPO, also requires the NPO to compete with private printers for printing jobs of government forms, except for the printing of the ballots which, under the electronic election law, must be priced at equivalent to that offered by private printers.