THE Interior Department has implemented only 12 out of 1,079 rehabilitation projects intended for the areas devastated by the magnitude 7.2 Bohol earthquake in 2013, the Commission on Audit says in its 2014 audit report.
“Of the 1,079 projects with [a]fund allocation of P2.413 billion, only 12 with a total cost of P3.139 million were completed as of Dec. 31, 2014,” the commission said in the report it released on Dec. 29 last year.
In its defense, the Interior Department said it had been able to implement 551 projects out of the 1,079 as of the fourth quarter last year.
Lyn Ilaya, head of the Bohol Earthquake Assistance Project Development Services, said there were 297 ongoing projects for completion while 139 others were still undergoing the procurement process.
The Interior Department was the lead implementing agency of the Bohol Earthquake Assistance fund, but state auditors blamed the provincial government of Bohol for the delays in the rehabilitation projects, saying it was responsible for downloading funds to the affected municipalities.
The funds were supposed to be used for the construction or repair of the municipal halls (P789.05 million), public markets (P419.39 million), barangay facilities (P380.99 million), water supply (P22.11 million), bridges (P269.19 million) and civic centers (P232.61 million).
However, state auditors noted that only P359.504 million had been released to the local government units as of Dec. 31, 2014, 14 months after the earthquake.
The Audit Commission also criticized the Interior Department, then led by Liberal Party standard bearer Manuel Roxas II, for “failing to remit to the National Treasury more than P10 million in collections and unutilized funds” in 2014 despite Executive Order 338 asking all government agencies to “immediately transfer all public monies deposited with authorized government depository banks and other institutions to the [National Treasury] regardless of source.”
The commission recommended that the DILG remit to the Treasury all unused balances and to “stop the practice of utilizing collections without prior authority from higher authorities.”
The agency said that five DILG regional offices failed to remit collections and unused funds with the Treasury including Region I with P1,950,578.55; Region VII, P15,000; Region VIII, P20,000; Region XI, P5,412,586.27; and Region XIII, P3,582,530.06.
