Magpale hits uncooperative NFA officials, cancels inquiry

NFA RICE SHORTAGE

The Cebu Provincial Board (PB) will no longer investigate the shortage of National Food Authority (NFA) rice in the province.

Cebu Vice Governor Agnes Magpale admitted at being disappointed with the outcome of their legislative inquiry last Monday with invited NFA officials whom she accused of not cooperating with them.

“It was useless to go ahead with the investigation. Because there was nothing we could get (from the NFA officials),” Magpale said in a press conference yesterday.

The Provincial Board conducted the inquiry, as requested by Cebu Third District Representative Alex Binghay, after reports surfaced that even the Captiol was no longer receiving deliveries of NFA rice because of the shortage.

The shortage has greatly affected some programs of the provincial government such as the “Bugasan sa Kababaenhan” and “Halad Kang Lolo ug Lola” where they distribute free NFA rice to women and senior citizens in the province.

The PB also wanted to know if reports were true that the NFA distributed rice only to traders in the months that the agency has stopped distributing to its accredited retailers resulting in high prices of the staple.

But this was denied by NFA-7 Regional Director Procopio Trabajo II during the legislative inquiry. He said that they have deployed monitoring units to markets and have not received report about this.

Magpale however, was not convinced that the markets were indeed being monitored by the NFA as she suggested that the province will help in the monitoring.

Magpale said that no NFA official had communicated with them since they made the offer to help.

“They (NFA) don’t take us seriously. I said we can designate local government units (LGUs) so we really can monitor,” Magpale said adding that they can really help since they have people who can monitor the pricing and distribution, among others, of NFA rice in the province.

“Niingon sila nga ilang monitoring team kuwang. (So) we can designate nga mohandle (in every) town. Pero wala sila mo respond,” Magpale said.
(They said they lack of monitoring teams. So we volunteered to help. But they did not respond to us).

Cebu Daily News tried but failed to get comments from the NFA.