Agriculture.ph Blog

THE Senate blue-ribbon committee is poised to open an investigation into alleged irregularities attending bidding for the purchase of P1.4 billion worth of heavy equipment by the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).

Sen. Mar Roxas II, who pressed for the inquiry in a privileged speech early this week, cited allegations that the bidding favored certain heavy- equipment distributors whose bid offers were higher than market retail rates.

“Supposedly, the contract has yet to be awarded. But what if nobody was able to discover this? We need to examine this case closely to protect the people’s welfare against those who scheme to pocket the people’s hard-earned money,” he said.

“We will examine closely what this project is all about and why the NIA favored these two companies, which from the outset are obviously disqualified from doing the job.”

According to Roxas, the two companies, he identified as Civic Merchandising Inc. and Transport Equipment Corp. (TEC), were favored in the NIA bidding, despite failing to meet a key bidding requirement imposed by the NIA’s bids and awards committee.

He pointed out that under the NIA’s bidding rules, “a company must have a single transaction in the last 10 years that is equivalent to 50 percent of the approved budget contract. Neither Civic nor TEC fulfilled this requirement,” he added.

Roxas argued that “transparency is important in all government projects so the people would know that their monies are not being wasted on useless things. We must make sure that this project does not follow the trail of the fertilizer-fund scam.”

He said a blue-ribbon committee inquiry into the NIA bidding anomaly is expected to result in remedial legislation that would strengthen safeguards in the Government Procurement Act.

Written by Butch Fernandez / Reporter

Source: Business Mirror