A TRANSPARENCY watchdog advocating good governance has asked the Commission on Audit to look into the reported work orders worth P66 million entered into by the National Printing Office despite an existing contract with a printing company totalling P74 million.
Filipino Alliance for Transparency and Empowerment is calling the attention of CoA to scrutinize the existing contracts of NPO in printing payment contribution forms of the Social Security System.
“The CoA should employ disinterested process and procedures in conducting the audit and in validating documents to be able to come up with correct and quality results,” said Fate.
CoA needs to determine if the NPO has properly and legally undergone the bidding process for the sake of transparency, Fate added.
Fate learned that last August, Western Visayas Printing Corp. was issued a work order (08-2016-3877) by Production Planning and Control Division for the printing of SSS forms.
WVPC was surprised the same work order was awarded to three more printers namely: Best Forms Security Printer with envelope no. 08-2016-3877A worth P34 million; Tri-Print Work with work order 08-2016-3877B amounting to P17 million; and Metro Color with work order no. 08-2016-38777C for P15 million.
With the reported anomalous transaction, NPO Bids and Awards Committee Chair Sherwin Prose Castaneda quit his post along with other 10 BAC officials for allegedly too much pressure from NPO Director Vales Jr.
The issue here is not the resignation of Castaneda and the other members of the bids and awards committee but their “accountability to the Filipino people,” Fate said.
“Instead of resigning, Castaneda could have explained why the NPO entered into another three additional contracts and [asked] if these contracts have undergone bidding process,” Fate said.
