COA: Lack of coordination delayed weather project

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Audit has put the blame on the lack of coordination among government agencies and not the lack of funding for the delay in the completion of a weather and flood forecasting project which could have helped prevent deaths from tropical storm “Ondoy” and typhoon “Pepeng.”

“The implementation of the project ‘Establishment of Doppler Weather Radar Network for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness in Metro Manila’ costing P116,178,019 was delayed for 51 months due to lack of careful planning and proper coordination among Pagasa officials, hence depriving the general public of its benefits,” a COA report stated. Pagasa stands for Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.

“Had there been careful planning, evaluation and proper coordination among Pagasa officials in the project implementation and in the handling of the funds intended for the purchase of the Doppler Radars, the delays in project implementation could have been avoided,” it added.

Financed through the government’s calamity fund, the projected was originally intended to be completed in 12 months or in March 2006.

A COA report on the operations of Pagasa in 2008 said the Doppler Radars were expected to be delivered 18 months from the date of contract signing.

Based on the COA report, Pagasa submitted its procurement request to the Procurement Service (PS) for the acquisition of two Doppler Radars on Dec. 31, 2005. But it took the Procurement Service more than 31 months to tell Pagasa that it could not procure the radars because of problems in the pre-qualification of prospective bidders.

“The amount of P105,500,000 was deposited to PS (on) Dec. 13, 2005… and was returned to Pagasa only on Aug. 21, 2008,” the report stated.

State auditors said Pagasa eventually conducted a bidding and issued a Notice of Award to the winning bidder on Jan. 7 this year, but COA discovered that the contract for the purchase of the radars was still not signed by the parties as of Feb. 27, 2009.

“The draft contract provides that delivery term of the equipment is 18 months from date of acceptance of the contract, hence, the delivery of the radar equipment is sometime in August 2010,” the report said.

COA also reported the completion of a component of the project – Doppler Radar buildings in Subic. Another component of the project, a radar building in Tagaytay costing more than P10 million, remains unfinished.

“As of Dec. 31, 2008, the Subic radar building costing P864,999.46 was already completed, while construction of the radar building in Tagaytay City which is in three phases, with a total cost of P9,813,019.72 remained uncompleted,” COA said.

A review by the auditors also showed that the “geotechnical investigation report” on soils and foundation was released only on Sept. 27, 2007 or nine months from the date of award and acceptance of the contract. – Reinir Padua