Duque uncovers anomaly in 18.1-B health station project

Irregularities in the implementation of an 18.1-billion project aimed to build 5,700 barangay health stations all over the country was recently discovered by the Department of Health (DOH), its top official revealed Monday.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said he recently

found that the procurement and implementation of the P8.1-billion Barangay Health Station (BHS) Project, Phase 2, that started in December, 2015, has been hampered “because the sites where the health stations were supposed to be built were not validated.”

A total of 5,700 health stations are supposed to be built nationwide. But it was disclosed that at present, only 270 units have so far been constructed but only eight of them were completed with supporting documents.

Undersecretary Roger Tong-an revealed that when Duque assumed office, there were recommendations to pay for a total of 429 units that were reportedly completed. But upon validation, only 270 units were constructed.

Tong-an said this bolstered Duque’s suspicion of an anomaly in the project.

Duque said that in March, the project contractor – Jbros Construction Corporation – sent a letter to the DOH, stating itsintent to terminate the contract and billing the DOH a total of 12.9 billion.

This prompted the DOH to create a task force in April to investigate the anomaly due to a high level of suspicion following reports on alleged anomalies in the procurement process; audit findings by the Commission on Audit (COA); and officials of the DOH recommending payment without validation and financial document requirements, Duque said.

"I have initiated an investigation on alleged irregularities in the procurement and implementation of the Schoolbased Barangay Health Station Project. I tried to give the persons involved the benefit of the doubt," Duque said.

A performance audit report from the COA said that “the project establishing 5,700 BHS in public schools in 2015 and 2016 was obstructed by ineligible and non-workable project sites that were not fully validated before project contracting and implementation due to absence of specific guidelines. [...] Delayed and non-completion of the total BHS contracted again impacts on the procured equipment which remain idle or undistributed to intended schoolbased BHS.”

The Task Force, on the other hand, came up with a report affirming the irregularities cited in the 2017 COA Performance Audit Report on Health Facilities Enhancement Program Projects, in addition to other irregularities discovered in the project.

“I think the problem here is the planning. It looks like the planning is bad because there are no validated sites where the health stations will be built. From there you can already see,” Duque said.

“We’ve seen a problem from the level of planning, procurement, and also at the actual project implementation,” Duque added.

Duque has also requested the Office of the Ombudsman to conduct a fact-finding investigation to hold the responsible officials accountable.

“Heads will roll. Big names, small names, past and present. There will be no sacred cows. Heads will definitely roll,” assured Duque.

“This is deep-seated. It looks like this is a conspiracy. So we need to have a comprehensive investigation,” Duque said.