COA threatens to sue ARMM over P1.68 B in expenditures 2 SHARES Share it! Share Tweet

By Ben R. Rosario

The Commission on Audit has directed the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to settle some P1.68 billion in suspended or disallowed expenditures, saying that non-compliance could “end up with court suit or a waste of government monies.”

In the 2015 annual audit report released recently, COA also disclosed that the Department of Education-ARMM failed to complete the targeted 1,032 classroom buildings for 2015, blaming the contractors for the delay or their failure to implement the program.

However, in the same audit report, the audit agency lauded ARMM headed by Governor Mujiv Hataman for various accomplishments in production and agriculture competitiveness.

“For the year 2015, DA-ARMM intensified its programs and services to support the production and enhance competitiveness of the priority commodities in the region by providing support to its various programs hence, their accomplishments,” COA noted.

Getting significant COA praise was ARMM’s implementation of its market development services and the completion of 60.24 kilometers farm to market roads funder under the PAMANA and Bottom-up Budgeting programs.

In the audit report, state auditors disclosed that the total notice of suspensions on expenses issued during the audit year reached P1,016,211,177.

On the other hand, disallowed expenses have aggregated to P666,107,898.53.

COA said the suspensions and disallowances remained “outstanding and unsettled even at the end of the year”, thus violating COA Circular 2009-006.

“We recommended that concerned employees be directed immediately to settle in full, their audit suspensions and disallowances in accordance with Sections 5.4 and 7.1.1 of the Rules and Regulations on the Settlement of Accounts (RRSA). Henceforth, ensure that government auditing rules and regulations are strictly complied with before processing claims/effecting payments to minimize suspensions and disallowances in audit,” the audit body stated.

Auditors also asked the ARMM management to direct the head of the accounting divisions to immediately enforce the settlement of the audit suspensions totaling P39,1634,728 “within the reglementary period to avoid maturing into disallowance.”

Reacting to the audit findings, the ARMM leadership stressed that “bulk of suspensions” could be traced from prior years. It also assured ARMM that that notices have already been sent to concerned employees and suppliers for the settlement of the suspended and disallowed expenses.

“Currently, we employ intensive internal control to assure compliance with requirements. It follows that before processing of claims, all necessary documents are complete,” said the ARMM management.

Meanwhile, COA lamented that the “intended purpose of increasing delivery of good quality education was not achieved” due to the inability of ARMM contractors to complete the construction of 1,032 classroom funded by the national government.

According to COA records disclosed that the contracts for the classroom buildig project have already been awarded to various contractors.

“Validation of the report showed that some contractors were not able to execute properly the terms and conditions of the contracts they agreed with the Auditee resulted to a delay or a failure of implementation of the projects,” the state audit agency said.

It added: “Further evaluation noted that due to defective review, monitoring, supervision and inspection and reporting measures coupled with the failure to impose sanctions against these defaulting contractors resulted to the delayed completion of these projects, thus, the objective of responding to the needs of the increasing student population in the Agency’s area of jurisdiction were not achieved.”

Tags: Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), COA threatens to sue ARMM over P1.68 B in expenditures, Commission on Audit, expenditures, Manila Bulletin, mb.com.ph, program