Philippines orders fraud probe after paying MacBook prices for slow Celeron laptops
- Reference: 1660633034
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/16/philippines_laptop_procurement_fraud_probe/
- Source link:
The laptops have long since arrived but their purchase has now become a political scandal as it has emerged that the nation significantly overpaid for the kit it procured, and was able to acquire fewer machines as a result.
The problems with the program were detailed by the Philippines Commission of Audit, which [1]found that the Department of Education allocated P35,046.50 ($627) to each laptop, but agreed to pay P58,300 ($1042) apiece despite one bidder offering a lower price of P43,000 ($770).
[2]
That price hike saw the planned purchase plunge from 68,500 laptops to 39,583 machines.
[3]
[4]
It gets worse: the auditor found that the laptops purchased under the program at $1042 apiece used Intel’s very, very, low-end Celeron processor, which is not very useful for many modern tasks and are these days most often found in budget machines or Chromebooks.
The auditor also noted that in 2020 the Department of Education paid $581 apiece for Dell machines running an 8th-gen Core i5. The audit office also did a little price comparison and found Dell currently offers a machine far better than the Celerons at less than half the price paid by the Department of Education.
[5]
As pointed out by Filipino investigative outlet [6]Rappler , the base model of Apple’s latest MacBook Air sells for $999 - $43 bucks less than the Philippines has shelled out for Celeron-powered machines.
[7]Philippines logs on to Starlink for remote area internet services
[8]Philippines gov takes down passport application website amid privacy leak fears
[9]Elon Musk wrote article for China's internet regulator, hinted at aged care robots
Interest in just why so much was spent on such inferior machines has naturally been keen. So keen that yesterday, as [10]reported by the Philippines national news agency, education minister and vice president Sara Duterte has ordered the Department of Education to request the Commission of Audit to conduct a fraud inquiry.
“While we are not yet declaring that there is a fraudulent transaction that happened at that time, we’re also not saying that there is none,” Duterte said.
Documents have already been summoned and despatched to the Commission of Audit.
No timeframe has been set for findings to be delivered but The Register will keep an eye on this one out of sheer curiosity to learn how it was possible to blow millions of dollars on Celerons. ®
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[1] https://www.coa.gov.ph/reports/annual-audit-reports/aar-ngs/#49-5270-department-of-education-1654481445
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YvtqzBDWbHgW5Czd9wCSVAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YvtqzBDWbHgW5Czd9wCSVAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YvtqzBDWbHgW5Czd9wCSVAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YvtqzBDWbHgW5Czd9wCSVAAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.rappler.com/nation/why-commission-audit-flagged-deped-billions-worth-outdated-laptops/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/28/starlink_philippines/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/11/philippines_passport_portal_data_leak/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/14/elon_musk_hints_at_aged/
[10] https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1181402
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
celeron
I know (i did do latin at school) that "celeron" is from the latin word "celer" for "swift" but to me it always invokes s slightly disappointing vegetable instead.
government contract overpaying 50% on inferior kit? That sounds about par for the course. Actually for a place rife with corruption (https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/philippines) it's pretty good going!
That sounds pretty tame compared to how much Boris Johnson’s government overpaid for things. And I presume the Filipino politicians got much more generously stuffed brown envelopes in exchange for the contract.
Government procurement
It is entirely possible that there was absolutely no fraud or corruption on the government side. The bidder that submitted the cheap quote probably missed a tick box (perhaps quite literally) or had some other issue with their paperwork. The winning bidder probably had the best paper work. That is all that matters to bureaucrats. Process followed and paperwork in order.
Not to say that there wasn't any fraud, but I have had first hand experience with government procurement and fraud is not required for such a stupid waste of money. Best think of government procurement employees as mindless automatons mindlessly following a programmed script (the process) and only parsing correct syntax (the paperwork) without any regard for the actual outcome. Ironically all in the name of preventing fraud, corruption and wasting of money. Though, in all fairness, the employees are usually not allowed to think.
Re: Government procurement
Agreed - This episode made me think of the time when our ambitious deputy CTO somehow used his initiative and got a "really good deal" on cheap HDs, thrown in by the preferred supplier during a major storage upgrade.
A new shiny expensive SAN filled to capacity with slow, very low capacity drives, is truly a sad sight to behold.
Re: Government procurement
Sounds like an episode of BOFH from some years ago:
Purchasing guy: "We've got a great deal on some LCD screens"
PFY: "But isn't this more than retail price?"
Purchasing guy: "Yes, but these are the special A+ models, so they're higher quality"
Re: Government procurement
> mindless automatons following a script without any regard for the actual outcome
That happens in private industry too. A company making an automated analyser decided the project would be done with C++. Unfortunately, the programmers they hired knew only Visual C++, not embedded programming or anything about hardware. The project was finally completed years late after spending a lot of money on replacing burned out stepper motors.
The Sad Refrain of poor Business Judgement...
Philippines... enjoy your expensive Celerons. You should have bought your PCs from China not Murica... But thanks for subsidizing Dell computers in Murica, the ones with the better Intel processors... Murican kids are having a hardy laugh...