DPWH grilled over delayed projects, undisbursed funds

Senator Francis Tolentino on Thursday grilled the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) over projects that were either delayed or not implemented as well as unobligated and undisbursed funds.

Citing a Commission on Audit report, Tolentino said the DPWH was unable to establish the technical viability of projects, resulting in delayed completion and non-implementation of 3,440 infrastructure projects worth around P255 billion.

He said there were also 437 projects amounting to P10.9 billion that were not started at all as well as 12 foreign-assisted projects that were restructured.

In response, DPWH Secretary Manny Bonoan said there were “intervening reasons” behind the delay of the projects.

“There have been projects included in the 2021 budget that needed to be— we call for later release and this has to be approved by the Office of the President. It took some time for some of these projects to be processed and approved,” Bonoan said during the Finance committee hearing.

Further, he said, there were also “operational bottlenecks” for the final execution of the projects.

Tolentino said operational bottlenecks mentioned may be “sourced” from the internal failure to establish the technical viability of the projects.

“I think this is correct because many of the projects as we noted, actually, these projects were actually incorporated in the budget without a preliminary assessment from the start,” he said.

“So it took some time in the department to make the necessary preliminary engineering activities that are needed for actual contract execution,” he added.

Due to this, Tolentino asked the DPWH if it is “safe to say that [the country] does not have a good planning office.”

Bonoan later assured the senator that the DPWH will have a stricter process for planning.

“I would not venture to say of the projects in 2021, but I can assure the good senator that under my watch, I think we will have a more and stricter process of… the planning,” he said.

The DPWH secretary also said that an increase in its budget will address the COA findings.

"I can assure you that with this, with the budget that we are asking now for preliminary feasibility study and preliminary engineering will substantially address the final preparation of our projects in 2023," Bonoan said.

Meanwhile, Tolentino said that P1.4 billion remained unobligated and undisbursed under the department’s 2021 budget.

The DPWH said that it obligated P5.4 billion out of the P5.5 billion quick response fund in 2021.

It said it has also disbursed P4.2 billion as of August 2022, leaving only P1.3 billion.

The DPWH said it is working on disbursing the remaining funds before the end of the year.—AOL, GMA News