February 19, 2009 · Posted in: Governance, In the News, Investigative Reports
WB suspects, whistle-blowers bagged biggest DPWH deals
OUR latest story reveals that the four contractors debarred by the World Bank anti-corruption unit, the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), had received among the biggest contracts, by value, awarded by the Department of Public Works and Highways.
The companies — CM Pancho Construction, E.C. de Luna Construction Corporation, Cavite Ideal International Construction and Development Corporation, and China State Construction Engineering Corporation — secured a combined P1.6 billion worth of DPWH contracts, from 2005 to 2008, or even while the INT inquiry was under way or had wrapped up.
However, the contractors who had been spared from sanctions — apparently because they blew the whistle on the alleged cartel of contractors, bureaucrats and politicians rigging public works projects — in fact obtained an even greater amount of contracts from the DPWH.
Four of these firms that served as “whistle-blowers” or witnesses of the INT — Wee Eng Construction, Inc. R.D. Policarpio, P.L. Sebastian and J. M. Luciano Corporation — received contracts altogether worth P2.28 billion, or 42 per cent more than the contracts bagged by the sanctioned contractors. Of the P2.28 billion, about half or P1.1 billion went to Wee Eng, which bagged at least 24 project contracts from the DPWH, including 17 contracts signed in a week’s time, or from November 17 to 24, 2006.
To do this story, the PCIJ mined the 1,102 web pages of data on awarded contracts from 2000 to 2008 that the DPWH has posted on its web site.
The PCIJ has requested the DPWH for an electronic spreadsheet version of the data but was told that it has yet to secure approval from DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane. If approved, the DPWH said it could only provide the PCIJ static PDF copies of the data.
Hence, to acquire and mine the database, the PCIJ developed a software application that copies each of the web pages and compiles the data into comma-separated values (CSV) format. The PCIJ will make this database available online on pcij.org and i-site.ph for journalists and citizens to study further.
Read on at pcij.org.
1 Response to WB suspects, whistle-blowers bagged biggest DPWH deals
sixfeetunder
April 11th, 2009 at 9:17 am
The game of gangsters are as always confusing. The World Bank has an amazing bravery that other international lending institutions could hardly even think about. Exposing the actions of a country could be detrimental to business or whatever it is. But what makes me think is the hidden agenda behind all these expositions. WB has a reputation of oppression not only in the Philippines but in other countries as well. This time it uses a corrupt agency to hide its dark side by posing as a hero through its expositions of collusion among cartels of contractors and gangsters in public service. The pretentious whistle blowers doesn’t have the purity of its intentions anymore, according to this article. This is all about the protection of their own businesses, I suppose. I would not be surprised if investigation reveals that the reason why that undersecretary of DPWH was shot to his eventual death because of corruption. What is worse is that DPWH doesn’t even know where they went wrong as they continue to defend their acts (see http://www.roadmosttraveled.wordpress.com). I wonder who are laughing to the bank right now.