REP. France Castro (PL, ACT) led the Makabayan bloc yesterday in filing House Bill No. 3270 which seeks to abolish the Department of Budget and Management- Procurement Service (DBM-PS) for being involved in “so many anomalies of overpricing and fund parking.
“It seems that the DBM-PS has become a ‘one stop, corruption shop’ with overpricing deals on face shields and masks from Pharmally for the Department of Health (DOH), parking of funds by the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and now the overpriced and outdated laptops for the Department of Education (DepEd),” said Castro in filing the bill with Reps. Arlene Brosas of Gabriela and Raoul Manuel of Kabataan.
Castro said it is high time to stop the policy and practice in which the one approving the budget is also the one later using it for purchase.
“The DBM is the agency that prepares the budget proposals of agencies, and then the Procurement Service agency attached to it spends the approved budgets of these agencies.
This is a surefire recipe for corruption and must be abolished now,” she said.
HBN 3270 noted that throughout its existence, “the PS-DBM has been made into a personal shopper, grocery reseller, or sometimes travel agency of sorts.”
It added that the PS-DBM has “become a breeding ground for graft, corruption, inefficiency, and negligence of the duties of other government agencies.”
The measure also seeks to mandate the Commission on Audit (COA) to conduct an updated special audit on the PS-DBM’s transactions and submit its report to the House committee on good government and public accountability.
