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Villanueva: Fund transfers to PS-DBM must stop until agency is cleared of graft
Villanueva: Fund transfers to PS-DBM must stop until agency is cleared of graft
Senator Joel Villanueva on Sunday, August 29 said government agencies should temporarily stop using the Department of Budget and Management’s Procurement Service (PS-DBM) as their buying arm for big-ticket projects until the agency has been reformed and cleared of any allegations of corruption.
Villanueva said there should be a moratorium on the practice of agencies transferring large amounts of funds to the PS-DBM enabling the latter to conduct the bidding for goods and projects on their behalf.
The senator said it is best if government agencies themselves would do the bidding because the PS-DBM is “another layer of red tape in the procurement process.”
“There is practically no need for agencies to pay a commission to the middleman, which is exactly what PS-DBM’s role is. They can do the bidding of contracts themselves," Villanueva said in a statement.
Villanueva said he agrees with the observation of his colleagues that the reason why agencies dump their funds on PS-DBM is to extend the validity of the fund allotments.
The transferred funds would now be then deemed as obligations in the books of agencies and no longer unspent funds that must be reverted to the national treasury.
“When expiring allotments are transferred to PS-DBM these are given a new lease of life,” he said.
“I wonder why the DBM, which is a proponent of timely spending of funds, not only entertains but seems to encourage this kind of simulated spending,” Villanueva pointed out.
The senator clarified, however he is not calling for a full stop of all PS-DBM’s operations.
“...Only for new contracts. It shall continue its business of being the bulk buyer of government’s common-use supplies,” he said.
He said billions of pesos of unspent advances by agencies to PS-DBM “should either be returned to sender or the procurement, if these are on the last mile, be expedited.”
“Para pong balde na tadtad ng butas ang PS-DBM (PS-DBM is like a bucket that has so many holes),” he lamented.
“Kung magpapatuloy po ang daloy ng pondo, ang daming masasayang. Isara muna ang gripo at selyohan ang mga butas (If public funds continue to be poured into it, a lot of it would go to waste. Let’s just turn off the closet first and seal the holes),” he said.
The Senate blue ribbon committee is currently investigating the DBM-PS in light of the Commission on Audit's (COA) report regarding deficiencies in the Department of Health's (DOH) handling of its COVID-19 response funds worth P67.3-billion.
The panel's inquiry includes the DOH's questionable transfer of P42-billion of its COVID-19 response funds of which, P8-billion was used to buy alleged overpriced personal protective equipment (PPEs).