What about $3.8M purchase by NLB without tender being put up?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Report out previously for Financial Year 2013/14 :

The Auditor-General’s Office (AGO) released the Auditor-General’s Report for the Financial Year 2013/14 today (17 Jul).

This year’s report which was submitted by Auditor-General Willie Tan Yoke Meng to President Tony Tan on 1 Jul and presented to Parliament on (15 Jul), highlighted lapses in the administration of grants, schemes and programmes, as well as instances of weak management of resources which resulted in wastage.

Among the ministries and statutory boards cited were the Ministry of Defence, Central Provident Fund Board, National Library Board, Media Development Agency and National Parks Board.

In the case of NLB, it was noted that NLB implemented a computerised system in 2012 for the selection and acquisition of library materials from vendors with minimal human intervention.

AGO has found that the methods for selecting and acquiring library materials used in the computerised system contained logic flaws and inadequacies.

AGO found logic flaws used in the scoring methods for price and delivery lead time in the computerised system. This resulted in inconsistent and unfair award of purchases to the vendors.

AGO observed that due to the logic flaws, NLB actually awarded some 61 purchases to vendors which quoted higher prices and longer delivery lead time than others. As a result, NLB paid more to purchase the library materials while accepting a longer delivery lead time from the awarded vendors.

NLB said it would revise its scoring methods for both price and delivery time in the system starting from end of financial year 2014/15.

Due to flaws in NLB’s computerised purchasing system, it was found that the system would make direct award for purchase of a library material to a vendor which recommended the title and met all contractual requirements, at the point of the purchase. That is, the system does not provide opportunities for other vendors to quote for the same title.

Some $3.76 million worth of library materials were purchased in this manner from Dec 2012 to Oct 2013 directly without any competition.

To show the flaws in NLB’s system, AGO test checked 249 titles purchased via direct awards by the system from Dec 2012 to Oct 2013. It was found that the titles were subsequently offered by at least one other vendor within 2 weeks of date of last award, at a lower price compared to the original award price. The price savings ranged from 5 to 70.5%.

AGO said, “By design, the system does not enable NLB to get the best price for such purchases.”

NLB said that it would enhance the system to allow vendors to view the titles and authors of the publications that had been recommended by other vendors, and allow a 2-week window period for vendors to quote for the same title. It targeted to implement the enhancement by the end of financial year 2014/15.

It’s not known who is the party responsible for helping NLB to build such a “flawed” computerised purchasing system.

Response :

Do take note of the words in the report ”Some $3.76 million worth of library materials were purchased in this manner from Dec 2012 to Oct 2013 directly without any competition.”

So the taxpayers has been paying overpriced items according to the report and it is easily overpriced between 5 to 70.5% more .

This is taxpayers money to be accounted for ! A library system has totally minimum risk of suffering unnecessary losses of taxpayers money if carefully managed ! If both present Chairman of NLB Ms Yeoh Chee Yan and Ms Elaine Ng , Chief Executive Officer in the NLB system , are the highest management people at that time in those years of flaws in the report, then why is the government still using incompetent negligent management staff of Chairman Ms Yeoh Chee Yan and Ms Elaine Ng , Chief Executive Officer in the NLB system ?

If these two are the management staff at that time and having suffered so much losses of taxpayers money , why didn’t the government hauled both Chairman of NLB Ms Yeoh Chee Yan and Ms Elaine Ng , Chief Executive Officer in the NLB system out , and charged them out for negligent in management of the NLB system that has resulted in so much of taxpayers money of losses through negligent in management ?

The report has stated that ” $3.76 million worth of library materials were purchased in this manner from Dec 2012 to Oct 2013 directly without any competition. ” ? Is that right ? Is that proper ? Who should account for taxpayers money losses as NLB is declared as an agency of the government ? Obviously it is both the Chairman and the CEO of the NLB that should be responsible , right ?

With such losses of taxpayers money, can the government clarify why these two women are not charged for negligent and mis-management of public taxpayers fund for the library ? So why no accountability to taxpayers and send both of them to jail !

If both the Chairman and CEO can be let off , who should be accountable for losses in taxpayers money ? Will the whole country not be paying more higher taxes in the future as a result of both incapable Chairman Ms Yeoh Chee Yan and CEO Ms Elaine Ng of the NLB to manage our system ?

http://www.tremeritus.com/2015/02/14...t-competition/


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