Baciwa’s secret – 6

A former Bacolod City Water District employee was trying to contact me but for a mismatch of schedule we were unable to talk. I do not know what he wanted, but another former employee did give me some leads in uncovering more secrets in Baciwa.

The informant (or whistle blower, which is a more common term these days) suggested that a lifestyle check be made on some personalities (the names I will withhold for the moment) as to where they got their millions worth of business, like a gasoline station and apartments.

We shall leave those matters for the authorities to unravel and make public if warranted. They could also be false leads.

What is interesting is the extravagance in Baciwa. Documents show for instance that, in 2004, Baciwa purchased one air conditioning unit for the general manager’s office for P17,000, which is a regular price even for a 2.5hp at the time. In 2007, Baciwa again bought an air conditioning unit also for the GM’s office for P15,000 which should be a 2 or 1.5hp.  The next year, Baciwa bought another air conditioning for the same GM’s office at P18,000, which would be a 2.5hp. However, in 2010, Baciwa bought air conditioning units again for the GM’s office, this time for a whopping P100,000! Did it buy five or six units for use within one year in the same office or a GM office elsewhere?

One can say the GM office would include the others within the same room. However, there are also separate purchases for the Assistant General Manager and for the Administration offices, etc.

Our informant suspects that these units could have ended in somebody’s apartment business because it does not stand logic that the same office could be changing air conditioning units so fast as if these are consumables.

There is another information which says that members of the Board of Directors can avail of cash advances for as much as P500,000. This can be justified under the cover of “official travel”. A few names were supplied but that is not important for the moment. How can Baciwa be so overly generous with the consumers’ money?

We would be interested in this matter if it can be shown that no liquidation has been made of the amounts. This can only be confirmed with an investigation by an outside audit. I don’t think on their own, board members would be inclined to wash their dirty linens before the public. I can be wrong – but some honest soul might just do it!

Now Baciwa provides each member of the board with a laptop. Okay, but what kind of laptop would cost P50,000? That must be a high-end one, but considering the work of the board members, would they need that sophisticated personal computer? My lap top cost P21,000 and that is quite sufficient even for hard work.

Baciwa is also profligate with its money. It bought a Nokia cell phone for one member at P21,000 and other for P25,000. Price-wise that’s reasonable, but should Baciwa buy it for them? Is that part of their official duty?  

In 2002, Baciwa bought a service vehicle for its board. It cost P680,000 which is a modest one. Then another vehicle  was bought in 2009, this time a van costing P1.4 million, followed the next year by another expensive vehicle worth P1.8 million.

Note that the expenses for what can be considered extravagant were made after Baciwa increased its rates from P23.37 per cubic meter to P28.33/cm in 2010 that raised its income from P5.231 million to P33.846 million.
Baciwa has reason and money to splurge.

It might be a coincidence that after it spent money like it was going out of style, Baciwa’s income declined to P26.022 million in 2011 and then last year down again to P22.151 million despite the increase in rates to P29.02/cm.

Something is indeed fishy in Baciwa. I cited only an example from a cursory look at its list of expenses. It would be a horror if we are looking into an audit report.

But is there such a report?

That question looks stupid but information from the inside says that “there is no real internal audit,” and that recently the internal auditor went into retirement.  How come?

Well, we shall understand more the reason for this and another recent retirement as we unravel more secrets of Baciwa tomorrow.

Just an aside question that was raised from the inside: Is it true that one Baciwa official had a bank deposit of P35 million? Is this the “commission” from all this  P560 million water project without water?*

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