DepEd cancels noodle contract

MANILA, Philippines – Education Secretary Jesli Lapus ordered yesterday the cancellation of the awarding of the P427-million contract to the lone bidder of “fortified instant noodles with fresh eggs and malunggay” for school year 2009-2010.

Lapus said the Department of Education (DepEd) would conduct a new bidding for the contract.

“We must move on and move forward to a new procurement to ensure that the program is in place. There is a bidding process to follow that requires a lead time for the production and delivery of the food items to remote schools, so we have to act now,” said Lapus.

He said the cancellation came as a result of serious concerns on the exposé of alleged overprice and irregularities in the P427-million contract to bidder Jeverps Manufacturing Corp.

“There is a need to do a market analysis and study the assumptions in the ongoing procurement. Given the controversy generated (by the overprice issue), we are concerned that the project might not be implemented this school year,” said Lapus.

“If we continue, the project may meet obstacles in its execution. I am canceling the procurement because we cannot sacrifice the nutrition needs of our malnourished students and compromise the objectives of the school feeding program,” he stressed.

A televised public hearing conducted by the Senate education committee chaired by Sen. Manuel Roxas II on the alleged anomalous procurement by DepEd of thefortified noodles in 2008 and 2009 showed an overprice in the noodles and freight fees charged by Jeverps to distribute the food items to public elementary schools in 13 food-poor provinces.

Also questioned was Jeverps’ consistent bagging of the noodle supply contracts for the last five years.

In the past two hearings, the Senate education committee found that P285 million was spent in 2007, another P61 million for a repeat order last year, and P427 million for the same project this year.

There were six deals, including a repeat order, amounting to roughly P750 million, with only one bidder over five years, Roxas noted.

Lapus had been questioned earlier over his mere deferment of the anomalous procurement of the P427-million procurement for 2009.

The questionable noodle supply deals were exposed by Dennis Quido, sales manager of government contractor Kolonwel Trading, who said that the DepEd’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), headed by Undersecretary for Finance and Administration Teodosio Sangil Jr., had violated terms of reference for the fortified noodles.

The foodstuff was to be supplied to public schools under the Food for Schools Program.

The fortified noodles delivered by Jeverps were reportedly without fresh eggs in the soup servings for school year 2008 to 2009, Quido claimed.

In his order to the BAC cancelling the noodle procurement contract, Lapus invoked Section 41 of the Implementing Rules & Regulations of RA 9184 (Government Procurement Reform Act), ensuring protection in the interest of the government.

He stressed that the welfare of school children is paramount as food sustenance is a major factor to keep students in school and help them learn.