business mirror
MONDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2012 18:19 ERNESTO HILARIO / ABOUT TOWN
THIS state-run firm involved in oil exploration appears to have struck gold instead right in its own backyard—the office vault, that is.
Now, with an administration committed to the daang matuwid or the straight path, more and more irregularities during the previous administration are being unearthed at the Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC).
The latest anomaly to come to light is the loss amounting to more than P122.4 million in an allegedly anomalous importation of almost 70,000 metric tons of coal from Indonesia in 2009. The energy firm allegedly entered into a questionable coal deal despite the lack of a supply contract with the National Power Corp. (Napocor).
The findings of an internal audit confirm the allegations made by current PNOC-EC Chairman Gemiliano Lopez Jr. and former PNOC-EC Chairman and Director Crismel Verano on anomalous coal deals during the Arroyo administration.
The April 2010 audit report said that after the Napocor-run Sual coal-fired power plant refused to accept the Indonesian coal that arrived in September 2009, the PNOC-EC incurred additional costs for the diversion, transfer and unloading of the shipment to the Asian Terminals warehouse in Batangas for stockpiling. The expenses included demurrage in the amount of P68 million; stevedoring, P37 million; vessel charter, P8.67 million; arrastre, P4.96 million; wharfage fees and port charges, P2.4 million, among others.
The Napocor apparently refused to accept the shipment because it had sufficient coal inventory at the time and it had no valid coal supply contract yet with PNOC-EC.
Another internal audit report disclosed that “some coal customers paid their accounts beyond their credit terms,” with at least six firms owing PNOC-EC a total of P1.42-million interest on past due accounts in 2008 and 2009. It said PNOC-EC losses in coal transactions with Republic Cement Corp. (RCC) in 2009 amounted to P8.05 million and P12.5 million “based on acquisitions at base and net purchase prices, respectively.” The report added that “these transactions were part of the committed volume to RCC in 2008, as stated in the coal supply agreement, but were delivered only in 2009.”
Earlier this month, Lopez accused PNOC-EC top executives of a cover-up of the irregularities in the state-run company.
Lopez, in a letter to President Aquino on September 4, reported that documents relating to the questionable deals had gone missing.
“When I assumed my post [in late 2010] and upon learning that these transactions were highly anomalous, I immediately asked different groups in and out of PNOC-EC to conduct investigations. However, they were all hampered by the lack of available documents,” he said.
During his first day in office, he revealed, he found that “the filing cabinet of the PNOC-EC president only had biscuits and candies inside and not a single file on record.”
Lopez also criticized the firm’s management for putting out a half-page advertisement in two broadsheets in which it “cleared and acquitted the respondents [in graft cases involving PNOC-EC executives filed with the Ombudsman] without a proper hearing, and without waiting for the decision of the Ombudsman which already acquired jurisdiction over the cases.”
The August 24 advertisement, which Lopez said was not cleared by the PNOC-EC board, “gave the impression to the public that the company’s management was covering up for its officials who have been charged with graft and corruption.”
“In arousing public suspicion of a cover-up of anomalies in the corporation, the PNOC-EC management jeopardized the launch of the additional shares of stock, potentially causing massive pecuniary damage to the interest of the government, which is to get the highest possible price for the new offerings,” he said.
Verano, for his part, said that aside from the P122.4 million in losses the firm incurred in a questionable coal deal in 2009, it had “combined losses” of more than P20 million from “ghost coal deliveries” that same year. Moreover, PNOC-EC had “unaccounted 149 delivery receipts worth P23.3 million that were supposedly sent to Navotas, but were not accounted for by the North Harbor Terminal in 2008 and 2009,” he said.
On July 31 Verano filed plunder charges against current PNOC President Antonio Cailao and his brother-in-law, former PNOC-EC President Rafael del Pilar, and five other top officials of the company. Earlier, he exposed the aborted sale of PNOC-EC’s 60-percent share in the Malampaya gas venture that would have resulted in billions of pesos in losses to the government.
The Office of the Ombudsman should act with dispatch on these graft complaints and uphold the daang matuwid.
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