Image via WikipediaAn April 13, 2011 press release prepared by the Department of Interior and Local Government
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Tuesday forged an agreement with Church and business leaders to ensure that procurement processes in the DILG and its attached agencies would be efficient, transparent and in accordance with pertinent laws.
DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo signed the memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference for Human Development (BBC) National Chairperson Archbishop Angel Lagdameo and co-chair Meneleo Carlos, Jr. at the DILG Central Office in Quezon City.
Robredo said the signing of the agreement was in line with the DILG’s efforts to encourage non-government and private organizations to actively engage in the workings of the DILG’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).
“We welcome this partnership with the BBC in our effort to promote transparency and accountability in our procurement processes,” he said.
An active proponent of anti-corruption initiatives, BBC has a Government Procurement Monitoring Committee that invites, trains and deploys volunteers to various BACs as observers.
Under the agreement, the DILG shall endorse or designate BBC to its attached agencies to monitor procurement procedures, particularly pre-procurement conference, pre-bid conferences, opening of bids, post-qualification, and awarding of contract.
Similarly, the DILG shall provide, upon request, all relevant information on BAC procurement proceedings to the BBC accredited observers. It shall also coordinate with its attached agencies in deploying observers and giving feedback on the observations.
At the same time, the DILG is also expected to endorse the BBC monitoring project to officials of the provinces of Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Biliran.
On the other hand, the BBC shall deploy its trained and accredited volunteer observers to the BACs of DILG and its attached agencies, and exercise prudence and vigilance in handling highly confidential and sensitive information that were noted by the observers.
It shall also present to the DILG Secretary the preliminary report on its findings and recommendations prior to a public presentation and engage the DILG in dialogues regarding issues uncovered during the monitoring of procurement processes.
Section 13 of the Government Procurement Reform Act and its Implementing Rules and Regulations provides that the BACs of procuring entities are mandated to invite, in all stages of the procurement process, two observers to sit in its proceedings.
One observer should be from a duly recognized private group in a sector relevant to the procurement at hand, and the other from a non-government organization.
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