Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel, Jr. thanked the Office of the Ombudsman for immediately lifting the suspension on two dozen employees of the National Food Authority (NFA) and expressed hope that the graft buster will allow more NFA staff to return to work.
“We hope that more suspensions will be lifted in due time so that NFA operations will normalize,” said the agri chief.
The Ombudsman has suspended a total 141 NFA employees, including Administrator Roderico Bioco and other members of the government-owned and controlled corporation’s top managers, in relation to the alleged anomalous sale of rice buffer stocks.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires said the suspension was lifted after investigations found erroneous data on the list of employees provided by DA, which the department sourced from the NFA.
Laurel said that due to the Ombudsman’s urgent request, the DA immediately transmitted the list provided by 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 is current and up-to-date. 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 are asking too much details; we were already conducting our own investigation at that time,” the agri chief said.
