Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. on Sunday called for tougher congressional scrutiny of the government’s multibillion-peso rice buffer stocking program.
Earlier, the Office of the Ombudsman implemented the preventive suspension of 193 high-ranking officials at the National Food Authority (NFA) in connection with the supposed sale of rice supply to private traders without public bidding.
“Congress must take strong action to safeguard the buffer stocking program, which is meant to keep an optimal level of rice reserves at all times for use during emergencies while providing
strong buying support to local farmers,” he said.
“We are counting on the congressional oversight committee on agricultural and fisheries modernization to conduct inquiries and draw up recommendations to promote greater transparency and accountability in the buffer stocking operations,” he added.
Congress earmarked P9 billion for the buffer stocking program in the 2024 national budget in addition to the P9 billion allocated in 2023.
Moreover, Congress set aside a separate P5 billion this year “for the construction, repair and rehabilitation of NFA warehouses” to boost the buffer stocking program.
The DFA earlier said it is launching a full audit of the NFA’s rice management practices following the controversial sale of 75,000 bags of government rice buffer stocks to
private traders worth an estimated P93.75 million.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. ordered the agency’s Internal Audit Service to examine all rice disposition data since 2019, the year the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) came into effect.
The RTL restricts NFA’s ability to sell rice directly to consumers, raising concerns about potential misuse by officials or traders, particularly regarding the sale of older buffer stocks.
“We want to see if there is a pattern of rice disposition that is disadvantageous to the government,” the DA chief said.
The audit coincides with the recent suspension of 139 NFA personnel, including administrator Roderico Bioco and assistant administrator John Robert Hermano, by the Ombudsman.
The anti-graft body is investigating allegations of corruption linked to the supposedly disadvantageous sale of roughly 75,000 bags of rice to private entities.
NFA records indicate that as of Feb. 1 this year, the agency held 361,396 bags of milled rice, with nearly half or 193,386 bags, in storage for more than three months.