BNSC quizzed over inflated payments

Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday October 12, 2018 12:36

Committee member, Mephato Reatile said this week that they have noted a series of incidents in which the Commission has paid service providers more than the initial quoted amount without any reasonable justification.

Reatile grilled the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development permanent secretary, Kago Ramokate on why the Commission always goes overboard and ignores procurement procedures.

He also said the BNSC and the ministry had turned the BOT50 Independence Day celebrations into a cash cow as irregularities and inflated payments to service providers were frequent. “Overpaying service providers has become a trend in your ministry and the BNSC. A client has submitted a quotation of P2.6 million and you end up paying P2.9 million. What for? Where do you get that?” he asked.

“It is not just that, there are so many of those tenders where you flouted procedure and increased the quotes from the initial ones they received,” he added.

He also gave an example of procurement of fireworks for BOT50 celebrations which were initially quoted at P1.9 million, but the service provider was given an advance of P2 million and ended up being paid a whopping P2.9 million. 

Another one, he said, was a tender given to Red Pepper, which the Ministerial Tender Committee (MTC) approved at P14 million only for it to balloon to P15 million.

However, Ramokate said the increase in the quotations paid to service providers was never deliberate, further explaining that in most cases the escalations were due to payable tax. He also denied that BOT50 was a turned into a cash cow.

“It’s where issues have been discussed by the Commission and service providers when such happens. And we do it when the service provider was justified in asking for an increase.  I know that during the BOT50 some of those incidents arose, which we could not apply the law to the letter. But I wouldn’t say we turned the BOT50 into a cash cow,” said Ramokate.

He admitted that at times it is not easy to control dealings of the Commission, as it is an independent entity, which does not apply the same guidelines and processes as the ministry. He said issues were due to administrative lapse.

“I don’t mean that the BNSC generally disregard the procedure. They operate independently as a parastatal, but they do follow and apply procurement procedures as outlined in the PPADB,” he said.