Pimentel asks the Senate for an investigation into the “undue payment” of LTO to the IT supplier

MANILA, Philippines — Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III has asked the Senate to review an alleged “undue payment” made by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to a joint venture under a Road IT of 3.19 billion pesos. Infrastructure project.

He sought the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s investigation through Senate Resolution No. 147 tabled on Tuesday.

In the resolution, Pimentel cited a Commission on Audit (COA) report purporting to show that the LTO made an “undue payment” to its overseas information technology (IT) supplier Dermalog despite an incomplete rotation of deliverables. for the 3.19 billion peso road IT infrastructure project. .

Said project was awarded in 2018 to the joint venture of Dermalog Identification Systems, Holy Family Printing Corp., Microgenesis and Verzontal Builders, Inc.

“The said COA report revealed that all core applications were already paid for, although some of these core applications have not yet supported certain LTO transactions,” reads Pimentel’s resolution.

The core applications include Driver’s License System and Motor Vehicle Inspection and Registration System, which have been included in Component A of the said IT project also known as Land Transportation Management System.

Even before the LTO accepted the core apps, there were already 25 reported existing “issues” on those core apps that remained unresolved as of December 9, 2021, the resolution pointed out, still citing the COA report.

“It is disadvantageous for the government because the basic applications have already been paid for when they still have to work and function as expected,” he said afterwards.

These unresolved issues are said to have caused disruptions in the operations of various LTO sites.

“Unsurprisingly, there have been complaints about slow processing of documents for obtaining driver’s licenses and their renewal, as well as vehicle registration, which have been attributed to its new computer system,” added the resolution.

Pimentel pointed out that as a general rule, under Prepayment Rules Order-Memorandum No. 172, “no payment will be made for services not yet rendered or for supplies and materials not yet delivered within the under a contract with the government”.

And as a rule of thumb in supply contracts, the senator pointed out that “payment based on progress billing is permitted provided that the goods have been delivered or installed in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contract, and that these have been duly inspected and accepted by the procuring entity attested by a certificate to that effect.

“It is therefore imperative that LTO explain why full payment has been made to the supplier of this computer system which has unresolved issues and is clearly not performing as expected and is causing massive disruption to LTO processes in flagrant breach of supply and audit rules and to the detriment and detriment of our government and our country as a whole,” he said in the resolution.

I

Read more

Don’t miss the latest news and information.

For comments, complaints or inquiries, contact us.