MANILA, Philippines - The World Bank (WB) said it would await the results of the Philippine government’s investigation into the WB report on collusion among contractors in the biddings for the National Roads Improvement and Management Program I in the country, but would continue its projects with the Philippines.
In a forum, World Bank country director to the Philippines Bert Hofman said they would continue to cooperate with the Philippines in finding ways to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption in road projects rather than to “disengage.”
He explained this was not their development strategy and that the WB recognized the fact that the Philippines needed a lot of roads and other development projects.
Hofman said it would be up to Philippine authorities to conduct its own investigation based on the leads or the “Referral Report” given by the WB.
He welcomed the follow-up moves being done by various agencies like the Department of Public Works and Highways, the investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation in behalf of the Senate, which is also conducting a probe, and other developments.
He added that the WB still believed that there had been improvements in the system in the Philippines and it was working.
However, he said it was not up to the WB alone to cleanse corruption in the Philippines’ bidding processes on road projects.
“(WB investigation) is really more of an administrative process. It’s not a court of law, not to bring cases to court. Our investigations are meant to investigate whether or not our administrative rules have been breached so it’s not to prove something in the court of law, it’s not to provide evidence that will stand up in court,” Hofman clarified.
He also reiterated that its process of investigating collusive practices was different because it was purely administrative and not meant to prove guilt in court.
“We are a development bank, we are a development organization. We are not a prosecutor, we’re not an investigator, we’re not the police, we can’t subpoena, we can’t force people to get sworn statements,” Hofman said.
But he said their investigations were done thoroughly to make sure WB money was protected and that people who would be given the loans have good standing.
He added that more than the witnesses, the Integrity Vice Presidency of the WB tasked to investigate cases of corruption and fraud depended mainly on documentary evidence, which were strong, and interviewed witnesses to corroborate them.
He said the WB was “actually quite careful” that it would not hand out all of the findings at least to maintain the presumption of innocence under the domestic laws of those people that “in our view have violated our administrative procedures.”
Hofman said there were a number of indicators of collusion based on the documents alone.
“I don’t know if you notice but all of these evidence from the bids themselves, nothing to do with the witnesses, statements, hearsay, this is all in the bids and bidding documents themselves, most of the evidence we find in the collusion were from documentary evidence. They do interview witnesses to corroborate the evidence found in the documentation,” Hofman said.
He also said they could not hand over evidence to prove guilt because the WB could not pretend to become experts of domestic laws.
Meanwhile, Tanzania beat the Philippines in taking action on the collusion issue.
In the same forum, Bantay Lansangan, with the Transparency and Accountability Network as coordinator, said there was quick response from the government of Tanzania as its Public Procurement Regulatory Authority has barred the international construction firms included in the WB blacklist in the Philippines.
Bantay Lansangan scored the government’s response as mainly finger pointing by senior government officials and an admission that “that’s the way the business is done.” – Aurea Calica