National Printing Office tapped to supply 5M driver’s licenses

DOTr deals with NPO to deliver 5 million plastic cards in 60 days

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) has tapped the services of the National Printing Office (NPO) to deliver 5 million pre-printed plastic cards within 60 days to mitigate the driver’s license supply issue faced by the Land Transportation Office (LTO).

Transportation Secretary, Jaime Bautista, shared that he met with NPO’s director, Carlos Bathan, to discuss the details of a possible government agency-to-agency emergency procurement. Bathan said that he will submit NPO's proposal within the week.

Back in January, the DOTr issued a special order requiring all procurements of PHP 50 million and above by its sectoral offices (LTO, LTFRB, etc.) to be handled by the agency’s Central Bids and Awards Committee.

The LTO, on the other hand, has issued a memo temporarily stopping the production of license plates and has announced that their stocks of pre-printed plastic cards have been depleted. LTO blames the DOTr’s delayed procurement of the necessary materials for the continuous production of license plates and driver’s licenses.

In a report that was forwarded to MotoPinas.com by a DOTr source, the LTO had time from August up to December of 2022, or a 4-month early procurement window to look for a supplier of plastic cards, as allowed by the Fiscal Year 2023 General Appropriations Act. The LTO, as per DOTr records, had not submitted any active procurement of license cards as of January 2023.