Laurel: Lift more NFA suspensions

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., expressed hope on Sunday that the Office of the Ombudsman would allow more National Food Authority employees who had been suspended to resume their work.

Laurel made the wish following the lifting by the Ombudsman of the suspension of 24 NFA officials and workers over the agency’s questioned sale to private traders of 75,000 bags of rice buffer stock at P25 per kilo.

The traders sold the rice to the public for as much as P50 per kilo, reports said. Likewise, a congressional investigation found that as many as 150,000 bags of rice were sold, twice as many as the 75,000 earlier reported.

“We hope that more suspensions will be lifted in due time so that NFA operations will normalize,” Laurel said.

The Ombudsman suspended for six months without pay a total of 141 NFA officials and employees, including administrator Roderico Bioco, assistant administrator of operations John Robert Hermano, acting department manager for operations and coordination Jonathan Yazon, and recently appointed officer in charge Piolito Santos.

Laurel has taken over temporarily as NFA administrator.

Ombudsman Samuel Martires said the 24 employees’ suspensions were lifted after investigators found flaws in the data provided to his office by the Department of Agriculture, which he said initially came from the NFA.

Laurel said that due to the Ombudsman’s urgent request, “the DA immediately transmitted the list provided by the NFA without verifying its accuracy to avoid suspicion within the agency.’

“The list was given to us by NFA, and we just forwarded it to the Ombudsman, believing that [it] is current and up-to-date,” the agri chief said.

“We had no chance to audit the list because of the urgency of the Ombudsman’s request. Had we verified the list with NFA management, it might have stirred suspicion as to why we were asking for too many details; we were already conducting our own investigation at that time,” he added.

Reports of the NFA allegedly selling rice buffer stock to private traders without bidding resurfaced at the end of February.

A report indicated 150,000 rice bags were claimed to be sold, of which 88,000 are still unclaimed from the agency’s warehouses.

DA spokesperson, Asec. Arnel De Mesa, expressed the possibility of returning the money to traders who brought the illegally sold rice.