Malacañang on Wednesday said the Presidential Management Staff was justified in buying more expensive bottled water instead of purified drinking water from neighborhood water refilling stations.
“PMS has fully justified its actions in its reply to the CoA findings,” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in a statement.
“Alternative procurement was done in view of health issues arising from water supplied previously,” Coloma said.
“All procurement has been done in accordance with law. Water dispensers from central office have been redeployed to regional offices,” Coloma also said.
The Commission on Audit has castigated the PMS for its drinking water purchases.
In its 2015 financial audit report, CoA questioned the decision of PMS to buy branded drinking water from the Armed Forces of the Philippines Commissary in mid-2014 “due to a lone incidence of diarrhea among the PMS personnel.”
CoA noted that before the PMS decided to buy premium water in six-liter bottles, it had been buying its water in five-gallon bottles from “reputable” water refilling stations.
CoA said the switch meant an additional P850,000 in unnecessary expenses for the PMS as a refilled bottle was priced at an average of P1.50 to P1.75 per liter compared to the branded bottled water’s average price of P9.6587 per liter.
Apart from additional costs, CoA said PMS also rendered useless the 19 water dispensers (worth P76,359.00) for the five-gallon bottles.
“We recommended that the agency be prudent in spending government funds by purchasing drinking water from reputable refilling stations. The agency should simply choose carefully a supplier which complies with all sanitary requirements to ensure safety of the employees and to maximize the use of its PPE [property, plant and equipment],” said CoA.
Management commented that PMS will procure through Small Value Procurement purified drinking water from the reputable refilling station that best meets its requirement to ensure safety of PMS personnel.
In its reply, PMS said it would stop buying bottled water. Instead, it would procure through Small Value Procurement purified drinking water from the reputable refilling station that “best meets its requirement to ensure safety of PMS personnel.”