House urged to probe LTO fees

Two congressmen urged the House yesterday to look into what they described as millions of pesos in illegal computerization fees that the Land Transportation Office (LTO) has allegedly been collecting.

In making the call, Representatives Rolex Suplico of Iloilo and Mayo Almario of Davao Oriental cited a Commission on Audit (COA) report that computerization fees were collected from motor vehicle owners in regions that have not been reached by LTO’s on-line service.

The two said LTO officials should explain what they have done with the COA finding that they uncover P332 million in "illegal payments" made to the information techology firm Strategic Development Co. (Stradcom), the company that installed the agency’s computers on a build-own-operate (BOO) arrangement.

They said the audit commission has disallowed these payments and Stradcom should therefore be required to return such huge amount.

Alternatively, LTO can recoup the amount by withholding future payments to Stradcom until the money is fully recovered, they added.

According to the COA report, the P332 million represents fees collected from car owners registering their vehicles but which fees are not sanctioned under the BOO contract.

Suplico said in one region, for instance, the computerization fee is P2 higher than what the contract provides, while in another region, fees were collected for registration papers that were processed manually.

In the LTO offices in Region X (Northern Mindanao), which have not been reached by the agency’s computerization program, some P7 million in computerization fees was collected, he said.

"In other words, car owners were charged computerization fees even if typewriters and not computers were used in the production of their registration papers," he added.

He pointed out that LTO and Stradcom should even reimburse these motor vehicle owners the fees illegally collected from them, plus reasonable interest.

"I think that LTO is giving Stradcom an undue favor to the prejudice of the public that it should serve and protect," he stressed.

At the same time, Suplico and Almario called for a review of LTO’s computerization program to determine how much has already been paid to its BOO contractor and how long would car owners still have to pay for such service.

They said the agency collects hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, every year in computerization fees that it turns over to Stradcom. — Jess Diaz