License plates
Motorists who registered their vehicles from 2013 to 2015 will not yet receive their license plates by March next year.
The Land Transportation Office (LTO) announced that it will be issuing a new batch of license plates by March 2018, but clarified that the issuance only covers registrations made in 2016 and onwards.
LTO media consultant Weng Ocfemia explained that the 2013 procurement of license plates for registrations made prior to 2016 is still being questioned before the courts.
“May notice of disallowance ang Commission on Audit (COA) at may temporary restraining order (TRO) ang Supreme Court (SC),” Ocfemia explained in a text message to INQUIRER.net.
(The Commission on Audit has a notice of disallowance and the Supreme Court has a temporary restraining order.)
The COA issued a notice of disallowance on July 13, 2015, saying that the LTO’s deal with supplier Power Plates Development Concepts Incorporated-J. Knieriem BV-Goes (PPI-JKG) was “illegal.”
According to the COA, the deal was awarded without an allotment under the 2014 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
In addition, the Supreme Court (SC) issued a temporary restraining order barring the then Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the LTO from releasing 700,000 license plates for motor vehicles and motorcycles.
READ: SC temporarily halts LTO release of car, motorcycle plates
The SC issued the TRO after several lawmakers filed a petition insisting that the confiscated license plates cannot be donated by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to the LTO because of the notice of disallowance issued by the COA.
In a separate statement, the LTO explained that it only signed a new contract with Trojan Computer Forms Manufacturing Corporation and J.H. Tonnjes E.A.S.T. GmbH & Co. KG Joint Venture, the winning bidder to supply license plates for 2016, 2017 and 2018.
“Sometime in November 2016, DOTr (Department of Transportation) Secretary Arthur P. Tugade approved the request and set aside the amount of P1 billion from DOTr’s budget for LTO’s procurement of license plates,” the statement read.
The LTO said it already issued a notice of award to the winning bidder in procuring license plates worth P978.8 million last Dec. 1. The wining bidder has already been required to provide the performance security.
Initial delivery is expected sometime in March 2018, the LTO said. /jpv