MANILA, Philippines – An agency under the Department of Finance (DOF) has only released P62.43 million out of the P1.12 billion allocated for the country’s poorest and strife-torn communities, according to the Commission on Audit (COA).
In an audit report released on Thursday, November 26, COA said the goals of the Performance-Based Grant System (PBGS) under the Agrarian Reform Communities Project II (ARCP II) might no longer be attainable in 2015 due to the slow disbursement of funds by the Municipal Development Fund Office (MDFO), an agency under the DOF.
The program aims to bring development to the 20 poorest provinces of the country by providing cash incentives to municipalities that have improved performance on areas such as planning, budgeting, financial management, governance, procurement, monitoring, and evaluation.
State auditors noted that the Department of Agrarian Reform caused “significant delays” in the release of funds, as it has only transferred P470.77 million to the MDFO, leaving an unreleased balance of P649.23 million.
“The low disbursement of the RCP II-PBGS fund poses a significant risk to the attainment of the PGBS objectives,” the COA said.
Aside from this, COA also reprimanded MFDO for rerouting funds to other projects.
“Verification also showed that P124,499,925 or 26% of the PBGS-ARCP II fund was disbursed for the implementation of other program component ARCP which is Rural Infrastructure. We recommended that management refrain from using PBGS fund for purposes other than those for which it was intended,” the COA said in its report.
The MFDO, for its part, defended the delays in fund release. The agency said it could not easily release funds because of the criteria for good performance, something that most LGUs struggle with.
Another challenge encountered, MFDO said, is the problems in the submission of necessary documents.
As for the realignment of funds, the MDFP explained they had to do it to cope with the influx of requests for fund releases under the rural infrastructure program, an entirely different program from the PBGS.
But it said it has already started returning funds to the PBGS coffers, with a total of P50.7 million returned as of April 23, 2015. – Rappler.com