FOLLOWING President Duterte’s corruption claims, Public Works secretary Mark Villar ordered the creation of a task force to probe alleged anomalies in projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
But yesterday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the President may create an “independent task force” to weed out corruption in the department.
Independent experts must do the investigation to ensure that findings will be transparent and made with integrity. Anything less will be perceived by the public as a komite de abswelto if the task force will be composed of DPWH officials and personnel themselves.
Secretary Villar has committed to work with advocacy groups to ensure transparent proceedings in the task force and stamp out corruption in public works projects. This is most welcome. But as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Let’s be frank here. The main problem in government projects is what anti-corruption advocacy groups call as “legal bid rigging” of government contracts if there are only single bidders in projects.
A review of infrastructure projects with only single bidders would show that its project prices offer no substantial variation from its approved budget, which is the ceiling price for all projects. In one of the more controversial DPWH projects in Metro Manila, for example, the final contract price of P389 million only had a 2.04 percent variance from the approved project budget of P398 million. This system allows corruption activities to be syndicated by private contractors and personnel in government agencies.
Prior to the current public bidding law, government projects always require another bidder before any government procurement proceeds to ensure the best lowest prices for government-given specific standards. This was removed in Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act. This law allows sole bidders to proceed with procurement as long the bidder possess all the legal, technical and financial requirements to proceed with the bid.
What the law failed to see is that this mechanism allows parties to inflate contract prices through legal means – to ensure handsome “SOPs” for holy cows which would, in turn, force contactors to scrimp on the project’s budget so he could ensure profit for himself, too. And it is the public that is left holding the empty bag, or a substandard infrastructure project. Tonto!
