THE Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) is fast proving to be astute in handling numbers, but not cash, and long-term revenues as its latest deal with Unisys for the computerization of the civil-registry system (CRS) shows.
Unisys is a United States-based company that also services the information system of the global banking system for quick financial transactions and has contracts with various US armed services and federal agencies.
PSA Director General Lisa Grace S. Bersales and Unisys Executive Juan Ingersol Castro signed the P1.59-billion contract for the CRS-Information Technology Project 2 (CRS-ITP2) about a month ago, despite nagging questions about an agreement that gives Unisys full control of all civil-registry documents nationwide, with the government getting only 45.5 percent of the revenues.
Curiously, the PSA signed the contract despite the fact that the agency had a cap of 57.87 percent for the state in the original sharing provision, a source privy to the transaction said.
In the 2015 audit conducted by the Commission on Audit (COA) on the PSA, it said “the income realized from this project was shared by the service provider and the government, with the latter having a lower share than the former.”
However, the COA admitted “the government shared more than the amount received by the service provider if we include the documentary, expanded and percentage taxes from the CRS-IT project.”
The COA also wondered why Unisys was still maintaining control of the CRS-ITP using government-owned facilities and earning a hefty income for a function that could well be taken over by the PSA.
“For current year 2015, revenue of P2,262,512,860 was generated from the system. The allocation from the General Appropriations Act was P158,178,000 and the expenses incurred from the trust funds of P82,383,337.90, or a total of P240,561,337.90. This total expenditure is only 10.6 percent of the revenues generated,” the COA said on pages 90 and 91 of the 2015 audit report.
In the same year, Unisys earned P949,888,398.42.
PSA’s using the trust fund was also questioned by the COA since no authority for its use was secured.
“Had this system been managed solely by the PSA, revenues for the government would have increased. Considering that there is a revenue sharing by the government and the service provider, the service provider realized a huge income annually,” the state auditors argued.
In sum, the COA maintained that the agreement with Unisys, which had taken over the CRS-ITP since 2000, had been highly skewed in favor of the US-based company, and need not have been rolled over twice since the contract ended in 2012.