THE DEPARTMENT of Education has asked the Commission on Audit to check for fraud the procurement last year of alleged overpriced laptops by the Department of Budget and Management’s Procurement Service.

DepEd Undersecretary Epimaco Densing on Monday said that the department submitted a fraud audit request to COA.

The commission earlier flagged the procurement of the gadgets for being overpriced and outdated.

“Considering that these are PS-DBM transactions, and considering that these were transactions done by the previous officials, the Vice president and Secretary Sara Duterte has already permitted us to write a letter to Atty. Jose Calida, Chairperson of COA, to ask him for a fraud audit from COA,” he said.

“While we are not declaring that there is a fraudulent transaction at that time, we’re also not saying that there is none,” Densing added. “Direktiba po sa amin ni Secretary, ni Sara, paimbestigahan niyo na ‘yan para makita kung mayroon bang kalokohan o wala.”

“Isa sa pinaka-importanteng proseso ng pag-procure ay ‘yung tinatawag nating market scanning. Ibig sabihin nito, kapag nagpo-procure ka, bago bumili, kailangan ang ahensya, in this case, PS-DBM, kailangan nagtatanong sa merkado kung magkano ba itong laptop na ito na ganito ang specification. Nung bumalik sila sa Technical Working Group, inilabas itong presyo na P58,000,” he said.