THE Commission on Audit (COA) has granted the appeal of the catering company hired by the Bureau of Corrections (Bucor) to provide meals for prisoners at the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) and the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW), lifting the Notice of Disallowance earlier issued against the P115.84 million contract.
With the said ruling, the COA has likewise cleared 12 Bucor officials and the catering firms Aurora Felipe Sumulong Eatery (AFS Eatery) and EDCT Food Services of any liability.
The Bucor officials are former Bucor Director General Benjamin De Los Santos, Administrative Office chief Rey Ragas, Assessment Rehabilitation Program Development chief Cynthia Andrada, Planning and Management Division chief Nora Corazon Padiernos, head executive assistant Melencio Faustino, NBP Food Service supervisor Lualhati Lopez, NBP nutritionist-dietician Marie Amjonette Battad, Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) vice chairman Roberto Rabo, CIW acting superintendent Elsa Alabado, BAC member Maria Cielo Monsalud, and Accounting Section officer-in-charge Eduardo Virtado.
The audit team for the BuCor issued the Notices of Disallowance on November 6, 2017 citing violations of the Government Procurement Reform Act in the selection of the catering service due to the absence of public bidding.
Auditors said the caterers should have been declared ineligible for failure to comply with the threshold set for Single Largest Completed Contract (SLCC).
In its 11-page decision, the COA en banc held that the SLCC requirement is no longer applicable because the transaction was a negotiated procurement after a failure of public bidding and an outbreak of diarrhea in the NBP’s Maximum Security Compound coupled with water supply shortage in the Medium Security Compound.
“The failed biddings as well as the ineligibility of AFS Eatery and EDCT in the bidding process that transpired before the negotiated procurement are immaterial to the emergency contracts in this case,” the commission said.
It noted that there was lack of time to conduct another public bidding as doing so would disrupt the delivery of meals for persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in both prison facilities.
“The government already benefited from the subject transactions. To deny payment for the catering services would unjustly enrich the government at the petitioner’s expense,” the COA added.
