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SENATE Minority Leader Franklin Drilon sought over the weekend the abolition of the state-run Philippine International Trade Corporation (PITC), saying that existing government agencies already have their own procurement offices.
This, even as he pushed for the return of P33.4 billion of the agency’s “parked funds” to the Treasury, noting that it is “immoral” to let this anomalous configuration remain while the government seeks funds for its Covid-19 response. and stimulate a recession-hit economy.
Drilon said he will follow up “next week” with the Finance Secretary, Carlos Domínguez III, on the latter’s initiative to write to the Budget Secretary, Wendel Avisado, so that an executive order can be drawn up so that the president can direct the return to the national government by the end of the year of funds dormant for a long time. at PITC.
However, late on Sunday, Avisado told BusinessMirror that he had told Domínguez that the development of an EO to force the return of the money will not pass the legal meeting, and the issuance of billions in parked funds of Multiple agencies should be treated as one “implementation.” problem.
Drilon said the DOF was seeking available funds to finance the government’s 70 billion peso mass immunization program, targeting 60 million Filipinos once a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available.
“They are looking for more than P70 billion. Here we have seen government agencies giving their funds to the PITC to purchase their various needs, ”even allowing the latter to keep billions in idle funds for acquisitions that have not been consummated, or that must be returned because certain purchases did not proceed as scheduled.
Drilon cited the Philippine Armed Forces procurement process for supplies as an example, where it provided payment through the PITC to purchase combat boots. Under the budget process, funds that are not used in a year are returned to the national treasury. And yet, Drilon added, in an apparent move to avoid returning the funds, the agency in question asks PITC to keep them.
Drilon, however, noted in a radio interview that a problem arises when unspent funds “skyrocket and forget.” As it happened here, he said, total parked funds reached “P33.4 billion in 2019.”
The senator clarified that this information did not come from him or from Domínguez, but “from the Audit Commission [COA] itself.”
The COA, he added, “found that the funds have been dormant for a long time and sleeping in bank accounts.”
Drilon said Domínguez agreed with his point of view and spoke with DBM chief Avisado to work on getting the funds returned to the Treasury, “since his spending authority has expired, so it could be realigned.”
GCG law allows decommissioning
Meanwhile, Drilon said the law they passed a few years ago reforming the government owned and controlled corporation sector by creating a Governing Council on GOCC (GCG) allows for the dismantling of the PITC. The latter, created in the 1970s, is no longer useful and is now being used to thwart proper tax processes that border on corruption, he added.
When asked if forcing the return of the P33 plus 1 billion will not ruin the PITC, Drilon responded in Filipino: “They are not needed anyway. DBM has a procurement service that does the same. “
Under the GCG Act, the Council has the power to “determine whether the task of a GOCC is a duplication or is something that the private sector can very well do. They [GCG] it can recommend to the president to dismantle and stop the operations of the PITC ”.
He stressed that the government, or the taxpayer, is losing the PITC’s practice of hoarding and then effectively “hiding” funds. “I repeat, the PITC is just a duplication because there is a DBM-PS and the agencies have their own bidding and award committees.”
Drilon said that a disproportionate consequence of the PITC’s common practice of charging commissions to agencies that ask it to handle procurement is that if it is tasked with procuring vaccines for the Philippine government, it could request the usual commission of between 1 and 4 percent. percent. In the case of urgently needed Covid-19 vaccines, 1 percent of P20 billion is a whopping P200 million, the senator said.
“That is why that agency must be dismantled. What they are doing is not only illegal, it is immoral, “he added.
Established in the 1970s, the PITC was tasked with purchasing generic drugs in India. “In their statute, they are supposed to help small businesses acquire the ability to import internationally,” Drilon said. But they drifted into full-time acquisitions, he added.
