Council appoints new NFA officer in charge

A NEW officer in charge (OIC) has been named for the National Food Authority (NFA), whose administrator and over 100 other officials and personnel were suspended earlier this month following the allegedly anomalous sale of government rice stocks.

“The NFA Council has unanimously appointed Director Larry Lacson as OIC-Administrator to make sure the operations of the agency run smoothly, especially during this harvest season,” Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel said in a statement on Monday.

“The NFA is an integral part of our effort to ensure the country’s food security,” he added.

Lacson was appointed director 4 of the Department of Agriculture (DA) just last week after previously serving at the Bureau of Plant Industry.

He also served as a member of the Philippine Food Expo Inc. (PhilFoodex) and a former co-chairman of the agriculture and fisheries committee of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Lacson holds a doctorate in agricultural science from De La Salle Araneta University, the DA said.

The department said that Lacson “brings to the NFA a unique perspective in running the day-to-day operations of the agency given his extensive experience in both the private sector and in government.”

“Lacson will help ensure the smooth operation of the NFA, whose top management has been suspended by the Ombudsman due to allegedly anomalous disposition of rice buffer stocks,” it added.

An initial 139 executives and employees of the NFA were preventively suspended by the Ombudsman earlier this month. The list rose to 141 after the acting OIC and another official were later also suspended.

Twenty-three of those meted suspensions were removed from the list last week after the DA was found to have submitted the wrong information.