COA says P10M for info drive yet to be liquidated but DILG says progress report only delayed

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) last year failed to submit a progress report and liquidate P10 million worth of budget for information campaign on federalism, state auditors said.

The Commission on Audit (COA), in its annual audit report on DILG, said that while the DILG released a P10-million budget for such federalism information drive to the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) by virtue of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) inked between these two parties in August 2018, the PCOO has failed to fulfill its mandate to submit a progress report and liquidate the P10 million as provided by the same MOA.

“Verification of the subsidiary ledger showed that no monthly reports were submitted by the PCOO to show the progress of work or projects undertaken and to liquidate all related expenses incurred as required under the MOA,” COA said.

It will be the DILG that will have to submit the PCOO's progress report to the COA.

“The bulk of the activities should have been completed as early as first quarter-end of 2019, considering that the effectivity of the MOA is May 31, 2019. Nevertheless, all the required liquidation and progress reports have yet to be submitted as of this writing,” COA added.

The Duterte administration is envisioning a federal government wherein the country will be divided into at least 17 regions with each region being financed with its respective collection of taxes and fees; share in top revenue sources; an equalization fund; the national budget and share from income sourced in natural resources.

The same MOA provides that aside from transferring funds to the PCOO, the DILG should oversee the information campaign activities of the One Nation, One Government: Transition to Federalism project.

The COA said the DILG, as overseer of the project, sent a demand letter to the PCOO last January to inquire about the status of the project but to no avail.

By March, the PCOO and the DILG, thru its Center for Federalism and Constitutional Reform (CFCR) Project Management Office, agreed to amendments to the MOA considering that the PCOO had already lapsed in its obligations to implement the project.

The DILG sent another demand letter to the PCOO in April this year or before the project with instruction to refund any unexpended/unused amount to settle the fund transfer, again to no avail.

Sought for comment, DILG Assistant Secretary Jonathan Malaya who heads of DILG’s Center for Federalism and Constitutional Reform (CFCR) Project Management Office said the amount has already been fully liquidated.

"The 2018 audit report was prepared end of December 2018. Na late Lang mag submit ng progress report ang PCOO.  They have already fully liquidated that amount and we relayed this to COA," he said. GMA News Online is still verifying this development from the COA. — MDM, GMA News