Comelec to probe high printing spoilage of ballots for Oct 25 polls

The Commission on Elections on Friday said it will look into the five-percent spoilage in the printing of official ballots for the October 25 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) polls, which forced them to order additional ballot papers for P14.5 million. Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said they want to find out why the spoilage was three percent higher than what was expected by the Comelec's Bids and Awards Committee (BAC). He said the spoilage brought the need for 300 additional ballot paper reams aside from the 4,952 reams already ordered from winning bidder Noah’s Paper Mills, Inc. He noted that buying just 300 reams would cost the poll body P16.5 million so they chose to buy 1,000 reams at P14.5 million. “The Comelec saved P2 million, but we still spent P14.5 million. I think we have to look into this. I think the public will be interested. This is people’s money so I think this should be looked into," he said in an interview with reporters on Friday. Sarmiento said that they may form a committee that would thoroughly look into what happened. "Who had shortcomings? Was the spoilage caused by time constraints or was it BAC's fault? Was the National Printing Office (NPO) pressured, making them commit mistakes? Or was it because of the inefficiency or incompetence of NPO? I think we should look into who was at fault," he said. Meanwhile, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez told GMANews.TV in a phone interview that spoilage is normal in the printing of ballots, noting that the poll body will discuss the issue. But Sarmiento said the Comelec might not be able to conduct the investigation until after the October 25 polls. Noah’s Paper Mills, Inc. won the contract to provide the ballot papers for the polls for P71.8 million. Section 51 of the Government Procurement Act allows a repeat order to the same bidder without bidding as long as “the unit price must be equal to or lower than that provided in the original contract". According to Sarmiento, 700 excess ballot paper reams will be used for subsequent electoral exercises such as plebiscites, special elections, and recall elections. — LBG, GMANews.TV