No bidding held for PCG’s P6-M cell phone cards – COA

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spent over P6.069 million in public funds to purchase pre-paid cellular phone load cards last year without any public bidding, state auditors said in a 2014 report released yesterday.

They said this was done through the splitting of transactions in order to avoid the required bidding process.

The Commission on Audit (COA) said the same kind of spending was used to buy scuba tank compressors amounting to P1.499 million last year.

Based on the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Procurement Law, the COA explained purchases should be done through public bidding except in some cases that are subject to certain limitations and as long as it should not result from splitting of government contracts.

“The splitting of transactions as prohibited in the above-cited regulations was noted in the purchases of cellular phone cards and scuba tank compressors. The purchases were divided into several Purchase Orders (POs) so as not to exceed the P500,000 limit to qualify for shopping as a mode of procurement,” the COA report noted.

“Considering the huge amounts involved, the procurement should have been done through public bidding. Such deviation is disadvantageous as it deprived the PCG to avail of the lowest price in the market that could have been attained if procurement had been widely disseminated for public bidding,” state auditors said.

The COA report said the PCG should consolidate all the purchase requests and conduct public bidding in all its procurements pursuant to law.

In defense, the PCG officials told the audit team that the procurement of phone cards was not done through public bidding since the funds were issued to the special disbursing officers (SDOs), thus the acquisition was done through shopping.

As for the scuba tank compressors, officials explained that the POs were prepared in accordance with the Requisition Issue Slip (RIS) from different requisitioners that were prepared at different times. However, they were funded on the same date because they were charged to savings.