THE Davao City Government's budget for Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB) Program, funded by the Department of Agriculture (DA)-Davao and Bureau of Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (BFAR)-Davao remained unutilized as of December 31 last year, indicating non-implementation of projects and violating some provisions in the signed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA).
BUB is a program of the National Anti-Poverty Commission that invites different local and national government agencies (NGOs) to participate in its various grassroots projects.
In the 2016 Commission On Audit (COA) annual audit report released last month, the City Government received P18,006,500 from DA-Davao and P1,750,000 from BFAR-Davao, totaling to P19,756,500, allocated for the implementation of nine agricultural training projects in the city.
"No disbursement was charged against the funds despite passage of the utmost nine months from the receipt thereof, an indication that the project implementation was not started as required," COA said.
COA said four projects - Strengthening of Fishery Law Enforcement, Fishery Management Project, Livestock and Poultry Multiplier and Procurement of Farm Machineries, have already lapsed their implementation period.
The MOA between the City Government, DA-Davao, and BFAR-Davao requires that projects be implemented 10 days upon the receipt of fund from both NGOs.
City Agriculturist Office officer-in-Charge Leo Leuterio, in a reply to COA last February, said the delayed implementation was due to tedious processing of documents that beneficiaries cannot comply immediately.
A total budget of P69,065,942.40 from different government agencies were provided to the City Government for 21 grassroot projects last year, of which only 23 percent or P15,577,595.70 were disbursed leaving an ending balance of P53,488,346.70 at the end of the year.
"In fact, five of the 21 projects were expected to be completed within two months, while four should have been completed before December 2016. Worst is one project under BUB-Salintubig should have already been completed two years ago," COA said.
The City Government was advised by COA to make certain that the projects are implemented in accordance with the MOA between them and NGOs and expedite the project implementations to provide the expected benefits to intended beneficiaries on time.