Roxas denies participation in Mahindra purchase

FORMER Interior and Local Government secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas III admitted on Wednesday supporting the acquisition of patrol vehicles for the Philippine National Police (PNP) but maintained that he did not dip his hands in the procurement process.

“During my stint at DILG, I supported the PNP’s police patrol jeep project because it was sorely lacking in transport and mobility capability,” he said.

“As to the actual procurement, I can’t comment much as it was conducted by the PNP and by the Procurement Service (PS) of DBM (Department of Budget and Management), but I am confident that the PNP and the PS-DBM followed proper procedure as that was the policy,” he added.

In the 2017 Commission on Audit (COA) report, the agency flagged the PNP over the purchase of 2,045 Mahindra patrol units -- 1,656 Mahindra enforcer and 398 Mahindra Scorpio light transport worth over P1.8 billion.

The report said the patrol vehicles were not fit for use in police operations due to frequent breakdowns, poor after sales services and limited availability of spare parts.

It also said that based on the accounts of police officers who were using the said vehicles, it consumes too much fuel as compared to their other vehicles.

Roxas said he is not aware of such report.

Earlier, PNP spokesperson Benigno Durana said the PNP should not be blamed for the purchase since it was the DBM which decided in the entire procurement process.

“The procurement of the Mahindra from the bidding to procurement process was not done by the PNP but by the procurement service of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM),” he said.

“It is beyond us, the only thing that we’ve contributed is to set the specification (of the vehicles) based on the operational needs assessment the PNP conducted earlier,” he added.

The Office of the Ombudsman had already launched investigation on