12 NFA officials relieved; procurement
stopped
By Manny
Galvez
CABANATUAN
CITY – The National Food Authority office in Nueva Ecija, which is
investigating the reported misclassification of 32,695 bags of palay, is
looking into other possible anomalies in the procurement deal, NFA Region 3
director Amadeo de Guzman said Wednesday.
Following this, the NFA in Central Luzon suspended the operation of its
mobile procurement teams in Nueva Ecija in the wake of the misclassification of
some 32,000 bags of palay.
“Misclassification is just a tip of the iceberg. Marami pang lalabasdiyan
(Many more anomalies will come out),” De Guzman said of what officials here
said of the graft scandal.
He said misdeclaration in the handling of the procured grains could have
possibly been committed.
“We will also look into that. That will be part of our investigation,”
he said.
Earlier, De Guzman said some agency officials and personnel could be
conspiring with some unscrupulous businessmen.
Two top NFA officials and 10 personnel were earlier relieved from their
posts for misclassifying 32,695 bags of palay.
De Guzman said instead of declaring the bags of palay wet, the NFA
personnel classified these as dry and clean.
With the misclassification, the personnel made it appear that the
procurement amounted to P27.8 million, when the actual cost was only P17.9
million.
Two NFA officials based in Nueva Ecija and five others were relieved
from their posts Dec. 3 in connection with the misclassification of 32,695 bags
of palay.
De Guzman identified the officials as George Roca and Daniel Valenzuela,
NFA provincial manager and assistant manager.
Earlier, five NFA personnel were relieved from their posts over the same
case.
De Guzman said he decided to relieve Roca and Valenzuela pending the
results of an investigation by a fact-finding team.
He said no case has been filed yet against the two officials.
De Guzman and NFA assistant regional director Marciano Alvarez took over
Roca’s and Valenzuela’s posts in concurrent capacities,
respectively.
The relief of the seven brought to 12 the total number of sacked NFA
personnel.
Relieved earlier were solar dryer engineer Edmar Torres, quality control
officers Cesar Paul de Guia and Adam Rayo, pest control officer Leo Thereso
Ramos and acting provincial quality assurance officer Jimmy Mallari.
De Guzman said four others would be included in the investigation to
determine their involvement in the misclassification of stocks.
De Guzman said the relief of Roca and Valenzuela was ordered by Renan
Dalisay, who directed the security and investigation services department, the
internal audit services department and technical research and services
department to investigate the case.
De Guzman clarified that the 32,695 bags of palay were not
typhoon-damaged, as earlier reported.
“These palay bags were not typhoon-damaged but were misclassified,” he
said, noting instead of being declared as wet, the bags of palay were made to
appear as dry and clean.
De Guzman said the five teams have stopped operating and their tasks
were turned over to the stationary procurement teams.
“Because of the anomalies in the procurement, we deemed it best to
suspend the operations of our mobile teams,” he said.
De Guzman said each of the five mobile teams is capable of procuring up
to 1,000 bags of palay.
He clarified that the suspension applies only to Nueva Ecija, where the
anomaly was discovered.
“Palay procurement by our mobile teams continues in the provinces of
Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales,” he said.
The NFA is investigating the misclassification of 32,695 bags of palay
in the province.
The two agency officials and 10 personnel relieved for classifying the
bags of palay dry and clean, when it should have been listed as wet are now
being investigated by the agency’s four probe teams, including three from the
central office.
Initial investigation showed the procurement officers declared the cost
at P27.8 million, when the actual cost was only P17.9 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment