THE National Food Authority (NFA) will finally get paid for thousands of sacks of rice delivered between 2008 to 2012 at the request of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
In a seven-page decision released last week, the Commission on Audit (COA) partially granted NFA’s request for payment for the unpaid deliveries but held that only P4.51 million was fully documented, while P7.28 million needs more documentary support for confirmation.
The COA en banc’s ruling was signed by chairperson Gamaliel A. Cordoba and Commissioners Roland Café Pondoc and Mario G. Lipana.
The NFA claimed it had delivered 12,212 bags of rice at 50 kilograms each as of June 2016 worth P15,534,375 in total, but the DSWD only acknowledged P11.79 million which was issued a certification dated July 30, 2018. Officials from both agencies are still working to reconcile the discrepancy based on available records.
It was in January 2007 under former DSWD secretary Esperanza Cabral and then NFA administrator Jessup Navarro that a memorandum of agreement (MOA) was signed allowing the DSWD to purchase rice from the NFA for disaster relief and other emergency operations.
From 2008 to 2014, these transactions were supposed to be chargeable against the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of various legislators.
On February 21, 2017, the DSWD informed the NFA that it can no longer pay its obligations after the Supreme Court declared the PDAF unconstitutional and halted all releases from the pork barrel allocations of all lawmakers.
At the DSWD’s advice, NFA OIC administrator Tomas Escarez filed the petition with the COA on March 9, 2020 submitting copies of 18 billing notices as well as the DSWD’s certification acknowledging P11.79 million payable to the NFA.
