THE Commission on Audit has called out the Department of Education (DepEd) over the failure of its regional schools’ division offices to comply with procurement rules in relation to the purchase of P60.9 million worth of pasteurized milk and food products for the School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP).
The lapses were discovered by state auditors in DepEd Regional Office 4A Schools Division Office (SDO) Cavite (P43.434 million), SDO General Trias and SDO Bacoor (P14.57 million), Regional Office 1 SDO Ilocos Norte (P2.176 million), and Regional Office 10 SDO Tangub (P720,406.28).
For SDO Cavite, the audit team said the purchase of 429,564 one-liter bottles of fresh milk and 71,594 200ml pasteurized milk did not undergo public bidding but was awarded to a supplier by direct contracting, in violation of RA 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.
“It was observed that the procurement …was done without strictly adhering to the provisions of the 2016 IRR (Implementing Rules and Regulations) of RA 9184 and DepEd Order No. 31. Justification was not provided by the SDO Cavite why they resorted to direct contracting and not through public bidding,” the COA noted.
Likewise, it was reported that the milk did not undergo physio-chemical and microbiological tests, no inspection of the actual delivery, and no list of beneficiaries was attached to the liquidation documents as proof that the contract was fully satisfied.
For General Trias and Bacoor SDOs, state auditors found that the supplier of the “nutritious food products” (NFPs) did not submit the Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) certification, the eligibility documents of the contractor, and the copy of the invitation to qualified observers to attest to the regularity of the process.
The COA said these lapses cast doubts on the transparency and competitiveness of the bidding process and offer no assurance that the government obtained the most advantageous price.
In SDO Ilocos Norte, auditors said the supplier of 120,876 pieces of 25-gram “brown rice nutty-fruity bar (BRNB)” failed to deliver the required number as it admitted in a letter dated November 6, 2021 that its third-party supplier could not produce the required specifications.
The supplier offered to replace the nut bars with banana muffins but the DepEd rejected it and instead chose Kalabasa E-Nutribun as a replacement in equal volume or more than the ordered BRNBs.
Auditors noted that SDO Ilocos Norte had already purchased 483,504 enhanced nutribuns and the change of product being ordered violated the DepEd’s Guidelines for the Procurement of Goods, Supplies and Materials since “inability of the supplier to fill out the contract is not one of the conditions to warrant an amendment of the order.
The DepEd agreed with COA’s recommendations to require the SDOs to submit all support documents needed to establish the regularity of the transactions and to observe procurement rules in future procurements.
