By TED CORDERO, GMA Integrated News

Amid the alleged irregularities in the sale of National Food Authority’s (NFA) buffer stocks to private traders, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. has ordered an audit of the agency’s rice stocks disposition since 2019.

In a news release on Saturday, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Tiu Laurel tasked the agency’s Internal Audit Service (IAS) to conduct the examination of NFA’s rice stocks.

The department’s IAS, headed by officer-in-charge Director Joan Jagonos-Oliva, has been ordered to review the period starting 2019 when the Rice Tarification Law was passed.

The Rice Tariffication Law, which allowed liberalized importation of rice, removed the NFA’s role to regulate the rice sector as well as its function as the only agency allowed to import rice shipments into the country.

The NFA’s mandate now solely focuses on ensuring sufficient supply of buffer stocks of rice in the Philippines—30 days worth of the country’s total consumption during the lean season, and 15 days otherwise.

The law also disallowed the NFA to sell rice to the public.

These provisions, however, might have been taken advantage of by unscrupulous officials and traders through the sale of aging rice buffer stocks, according to the DA.

“DA-NFA officials and personnel are directed to extend their full assistance and cooperation to DA-IAS to ensure the successful conduct of this audit,” the Agriculture chief said.

“We want to see if there is a pattern of rice disposition that is disadvantageous to the government,” he said.

On Monday, the Ombudsman ordered the preventive suspension of 139 NFA officials and employees, including administrator Roderico Bioco and assistant administrator for operations John Robert Hermano, as the anti-graft body probes allegations of corruption in the alleged disadvantageous sale to private traders of around 75,000 bags of rice carrying 50 kilos each.

Tiu Laurel earlier established a panel to look into allegations that certain officials authorized the sale of milled rice stored in the agency’s warehouse for P25 a kilo without bidding, and after purchasing the grains in palay (unmilled rice) form at P23 per kilo.

In response, the NFA issued a statement saying it had the mandate to dispose of its rice in good and consumable condition, as it released the supply responsibly by stretching to the maximum shelf life, and minimizing the sale of residual volume to other accounts. It has assured that it would continue to provide unhampered operations amid the controversy.

Last Friday, Ombudsman Samuel Martires said some NFA officials and employees who were preventively suspended have taken leaves from work. — VDV, GMA Integrated News

Published Date: March 9, 2024