The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has not provided 1.797 million pairs of license plates worth P808.702 million to registered car owners since 2015, according to the Commission on Audit (COA).
In its 2022 annual audit report on the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the COA noted that only 764,514 pairs of motor vehicle (MV) replacement plates, paid by car owners upon renewal of registration of their vehicles, were actually produced by the LTO as of Dec. 31, 2022.
Photo courtesy: Commission on Audit
According to the COA, this amounts to a backlog of 1,797,115 pairs of MV replacement plates valued at P808.702 million, a decrease of only 29.84 percent from the end-of-2020 backlog of 2,561,629 pairs.
The audit panel further found that, of the 764,514 pairs of MV plates created by the LTO, only 506,059 pairs were actually issued to various regional offices for distribution to vehicle owners, while the remaining 258,455 pairs remained at the LTO's Plate Making Plant (PMP) for packaging.
The PMP also informed the audit team that some blank plates given by the supplier, Power Plates Development Concepts Inc.-J. Knieriem BV-Goes (PPI-JKG), could not be used owing to a lack of Comma Separated Values (CSV) files that must be uploaded to the PMP system, according to the COA.
Meanwhile, the audit panel stated that of the remaining 20,509,807 new motorcycle (MC) plates purchased by registrants from 2014 to 2022, only 8,650,311 pieces were made and issued by the LTO's PMP and PU, resulting in an 11,859496 plate backlog as of Dec. 31, 2022.
The COA stated that the MC plates generated by LTO were just for the backlogs from 2018 to 2022, with no plates produced to address the backlogs from 2017 and preceding years.
It further said that the LTO requested a budget of P6.828 billion for 2023 to cover the current year's plate requirement as well as backlogs from previous years. However, the DBM authorized only P4.783 billion of the requested amount.
The COA advised LTO to "fast-track the production of the MC backlog plates and MV replacement plates and subsequently issue them to the respective registrants nationwide.
The agency must also submit a representation to the DBM "to immediately release the funds required for the production of replacement plates and MC backlogs since payment has been received and collected by the LTO from the registrants," according to the COA.
In a comment included in the audit report, it was mentioned that the DOTr planned to begin a license plate procurement procedure in February 2023 to address the MC and MV plate backlogs.
The LTO, on the other hand, did not specify the quantity of plates to be obtained. The LTO also stated that it will send its last demand letter to the supplier PPI-JKG regarding the missing CSVs in its delivered plates, stating that otherwise, the LTO shall explore legal actions in accordance with the contract of PPI-JKG."
