THE mandate of the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) is to buy supplies and other needs of government departments and agencies. The rationale is that if government procurement is done in bulk, the government will benefit from lower prices and ramp up its savings. There is also the added upside in that the agency needing the supplies will no longer worry about how these are bought, and therefore will have more time to concentrate its time and effort in fulfilling public service in its line of work.
Often, these correct and practical objectives of the law, executive order or internal procedures are sabotaged by officials tasked to implement such mandate. Such is the case in the PS-DBM’s purchase of COVID-19 masks, face shields and other medical paraphernalia from a single supplier, Pharmally. This favored supplier won nine contracts worth P8.68 billion. Another case in point is the subject of the current investigation by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee headed by Sen. Francis Tolentino — the questionable purchase by the Department of Education of P2.4 billion worth of pricey, outdated laptops which seem to be overpriced.
‘… some officials who have a say on fund placements of big sums of money in banks are most often than not awarded by these banks with commissions and favors, in violation of the Anti Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.’
Recently, the Commission on Audit (COA) has discovered and immediately raised the red flag on a high-yield investment of the PS-DBM in government banks — P3 billion in total. The newly appointed chief of this controversial office, Director Dennis Santiago, assured the public that the original investment is intact, and that they are already reviewing the COA findings and will respond to it accordingly.
“The amount of P3 billion is intact, and I am for the return of the money to the national treasury as soon as we have properly clarified the nature of the funds with COA,” he said in a statement. State auditors earlier flagged the P3-billion investment, saying it is unauthorized and executed outside of its mandate.
The COA said the PS-DBM failed to revert the investment to the general fund of the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) in violation of Executive Order No. 431 dated May 30, 2004.
“Review of the Cash in Bank [such as] Time Deposits, Local Currency disclosed that the PS-DBM invested its funds in high-yield savings account with the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines, to earn interest at higher rates as compared to that of a current or savings account,” the COA said.
The government auditors noted that it is not in PS-DBM’s mandate “to make investments and it has no authority to invest in a high-yield savings account. The practice of investing cash in a High Yield Savings account, therefore, deviates from its mandate of procurement of CSEs which requires the utilization of funds.”
This practice which occurred in the past Duterte administration is abhorrent as it is illegal, because some officials who have a say on fund placements of big sums of money in banks are most often than not awarded by these banks with commissions and favors, in violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
Here’s another reason why many lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are thinking of scrapping or abolishing the PS-DBM altogether. If this office is trashed, it would surely go unlamented.
