Politicians still ‘meddling’ in DPWH biddings

SINGSON

MANILA, Philippines–Several politicians have allegedly defied Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson’s repeated warning against meddling in the bidding for millions of pesos worth of road and other public infrastructure projects and ignored President Aquino’s “daang matuwid (righteous path)” crusade.

This was disclosed over the weekend by insiders in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), who said the politicians include a Bicol congressman, some members of a prominent political clan in Western Mindanao and a governor from the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Some of these politicians “tried to influence some members of DPWH bids and awards committees in bagging projects, as well as used contractors as their fronts in the agency’s procurement process,” according to a DPWH official, who did not identify the politicians.

“Worse, some local officials whose front construction firms failed to win public works projects gave winning bidders a hard time by refusing to issue the required permits [they need], like those for operating quarries, forcing the contractors to give up the projects altogether,” said the official who asked not to be identified.

Complaints

Sought for comment, Singson said, “We have already warned them.”

In a text message, Singson urged bidders and other concerned groups, including civil society organizations, to file the complaints against abusive and corrupt politicians.

“If bidders have any complaints, they should file them,” Singson told the Inquirer, so there would be a “basis to go after people who abet corrupt practices.”

Singson also announced that the DPWH had expanded the operation of its 24/7 call center hotline 165-02, part of the agency’s mechanism for good governance. It is run by the DPWH stakeholders’ relations service.

“Our 165-02 hotline is now connected with the DPWH’s 16 regional offices nationwide. Complaints are directly routed to these regional offices for prompt action,” Singson said.

According to him, the DPWH “wants to hear the public’s points of view on DPWH programs, projects and policies. We are prepared to listen to and learn from them.”

Feedback

Aside from its call center hotline, the DPWH gets feedback from the public through e-mail (www.dpwh.gov.ph), text message (2920), Facebook and Twitter, among others.

Earlier in a statement, Singson asked contractors: “Do not shortchange the Filipino people by engaging in corrupt practices.”

“While the procurement for the 9,278 projects worth P269.7 billion for the 2015 infrastructure program has started, we urge contractors to do their part in promoting the department’s transparency and accountability efforts by not conniving or giving ‘commissions’ to anyone, including DPWH personnel, politicians or other contractors, as they secure agency projects,” he said.

The DPWH, he pointed out, had “enough public works projects for qualified and competent contractors.”

To lessen opportunities for collusion, the DPWH has simplified the bidding process, asking for only five documentary requirements and eliminating the submission of letters of intent from bidders and credit line certifications from banks to augment their financial contracting capacity, which is “another source of corruption.”

“Based on the results of bidding conducted by central, regional and district engineering offices, we can conclude that some contractors were favored by some of these offices. There are also patterns wherein winning bidders were rotated among the same contractors [who joined] in the bidding process,” Singson said in September.

Originally posted: 10:13 PM | Sunday, December 14th, 2014

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