LTO airs side on LTMS issue

 

MANILA, Philippines – The Land Transportation Office’s Transportation District Officers Association of the Philippines refuted on Thursday corruption allegations raised by some individuals against the agency.

In a statement, LTO explained the reason why they need to undergo aggressive policy reforms to address challenges on the issue of digitalization.

The LTO said  they are using  the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS) by virtue of the Joint Venture Agreement between the national government and a German company and its local partners in 2018.

LTO’s statement was issued in response to the Coalition of Good Governance’s appeal that LTO chief Asst. Sec.  Vigor Mendoza II be replaced, alleging the official of corruption and betrayal of public trust.

But a few years after its introduction of a full digital shift of the LTO services, the LTMS was found to have limitations.

“To put it bluntly, there are contractual obligations that were not met and eventually affected what [was] supposed to be a smooth transition to the full digital system in the LTO. In other words, the promises and commitment stipulated in the Joint Venture Agreement were not met which eventually led to additional work for LTO frontliners and inconveniences to our clients,” said LTO.

“These lapses in contractual obligations have been the subject of the report of the Commission on Audit and assessments of the experts from the Department of Information and Communications Technology,” it added. 

LTO said they are fully aware of these technical glitches and as a result of these issues, they opted to revert transactions to the old LTMS. 

“To simplify, the LTO has been using the parallel IT systems since the LTMS has proven to be inadequate in our day to day operations. If only LTMS had completely addressed its limitations then we would not have this problem of having to use two IT systems which is a bane in our day to day operations,” said LTO. 

The agency took a swipe at individuals who are supposedly behind “any reform agenda,” emphasizing that the culture of reform and transparency should be supported, rather than undermined by “unverified claims.”

“We urge all parties to recognize the progress made and to work together towards a common goal of genuine reform within the LTO, rather than call for disruptive changes based on unsubstantiated accusations,” the agency said.