Prime Minister John Briceño is tonight defending a series of questionable payments made by the Ministry of Defense to its suppliers, many of them just under the ten-thousand-dollar threshold. He says the payments were not designed to avoid scrutiny, but to keep the ministry moving when soldiers needed food and supplies. According to Briceño, the Office of the Contractor General and the Ministry of Finance were taking too long to process requests, forcing Defense officials to act quickly. But that explanation now raises another question: did efficiency come at the expense of proper procurement? Here is how the prime minister responded.
Prime Minister, John Briceño
“This under ten thousand dollars where the ministry has been doing that to get food for the BDF, it seems to have been a practice that has been going on for some time. I saw on the news where somebody was making the point that it even continued up to this year. Well, now that I have been involved as the minister and I sat down with the CEO. And he explained, they went thirteen times to the Contractor General to ensure they can get it right when they put in the bids and he is saying, he is very pleased with the cooperation from the contractor general, she has been very helpful. But he is saying that when they sent the recommendations from the bids taking place, the ministry of finance took very long to respond. The ministry of finance may have their own reasons and the BDF eat everyday. So the only way they would be able to keep up with the food was by ordering these under ten thousand dollars. Now you could question who are these people that they gave it to, but that is another matter. That is for the contractor general to deal with. I am just trying to explain why is it they had to do continue doing this, simply to keep food on the table for the BDF.”
Paul Lopez
“But is that not a circumvention of the procurement process?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“I don’t think you are listening to me. I just said that what they are trying to do is to ensure that they can continue to get food on the table for BDF while they get an approval from the Ministry of Finance. There is blame to go all around and we now have to find a more effective and efficient way to approve these things.”
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