LESS than six weeks after being appointed to his current position, Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina was accused of junking a legitimate P650-million contract to favor his own company that had lost in the bidding process.
Lawyer Harry Roque said Lina junked the P650-million contract to set up a integrated data processing system for the Bureau of Customs two weeks after he assumed office although the contract had already bee won by the joint venture of Omniprime Marketing Inc. and Intrasoft International Inc.
“Lina’s decision to unceremoniously cancel the contract reeks of the foul smell of a clear conflict of interest,” Roque, who is representing the joint venture, said in a press conference.
Roque said that, on April 13, 2015.
The joint venture won the seven-month public bidding process on April 13, 2015 and the contract was finalized on April 23 and was scheduled to be signed by the end of the same month.
But on April 24, Lina replaced reformist Commissioner John Sevilla and canceled the contract two weeks later, or on May 6.
“It took him only two weeks to cancel a contract that had undergone two biddings in the span of nearly a decade,” Roque said.
“Lina canceled the contract apparently to maintain the status quo, in order for his company to continue doing business with Customs. It is too obvious that this has been fixed,” Roque said.
Roque said the cancellation of the contract will allow Lina to upgrade the current system being used by BOC, which is operated by the company Webb Fontaine which allegedly has a beneficial business relationship with E-Konek.
Lina has a 96.48 percent stake in E-Konek, which is managed by Lina’s business partner, former customs and internal revenue commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr.
“[But] even the World Bank has said that the present system cannot be used to integrate with the Asean Single Window system,” Roque said, referring to the common window system approved by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to hasten cargo clearance ahead of regional integration.
The integrated system, along with a national single window, is seen as the long sought after solution to rampant smuggling in the country.
It establishes a central database system that tracks in real time all customs procedures nationwide. It aims to be fully electronic, paperless and a human contact-free system of recording and monitoring customs transactions, Roque said.
The national single window (NSW), on the other hand, is supposed to consolidate relevant services from all government agencies involved in customs procedures using international standards.
But Lina said he cancelled the project because there are “other customs data systems that are more efficient, cost-effective, and advantageous to the government.”
“I decided to seek the abandonment of the current Integrated Electronic Customs Processing System (i-ECPS) Project under the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM-PS) right after reviewing all the Bureau’s programs, activities, and projects,” Lina said in a statement.
“i-EPCS is an immense undertaking which will influence virtually all of the Bureau’s operations upon implementation, I have been conducting a thorough review of its details such as its terms of reference, specifications, functionalities, and implementation timelines, among others,” he said.
“After determining that market conditions have changed, and that there may be other customs data systems that are more efficient, cost-effective, and advantageous to the government, I decided to seek the abandonment of the i-ECPS Project under the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management,’ Lina said.
He said there are existing systems that can fulfill the burea’s needs at a cost 50% cheaper than the P650 million project.
