THE Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) has issued demand letters to national government agencies (NGAs) and local government units (LGUs) which have received funding from the agency over the years after state auditors called out its laxity in monitoring the P315.73 million in agency funds it has downloaded to grantee offices.
The audit team said that while the transactions involved huge amounts, there was a “lack of control procedures on the IAs (implementing agencies) reporting responsibility” which was contrary to the Commission on Audit Circular No. 94-013 giving grantee agencies only 10 days from the end of the month to submit reports on utilization of public funds.
Likewise, COA Circular No. 2016-005 made it mandatory for all government entities to conduct regular monitoring of their receivable accounts to ensure timely liquidation.
Section 3 of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the DDB and the recipient agencies also gave the latter one full year to complete the funded projects or programs.
While an extension was allowed, this was made subject to the filing of a written request addressed to and for approval by the DDB Executive Director.
The balance of the DDB’s Inter-Agency Receivable as of December 31, 2022 showed it had P194.34 million unliquidated sums transferred to LGUs and P121.39 million that went to national government agencies.
The DDB management acknowledged the audit findings said it had sent out demand letters to implementing agencies with existing MOAs with the Board for confirmation of balances.
It likewise assured the COA that it will come up with specific procedures on tougher monitoring and inspection guidelines for funded projects.
Tracking the age of the fund transfers revealed 95.24 percent or P300.69 million out of DDB’s total unliquidated amount were released in the last five years or mostly under the Duterte administration.
A breakdown provided by the audit team showed the unliquidated sums aged “0 to 5 years” reached P191.45 million for LGUs and P109.24 million for NGAs.
The COA pointed out that monitoring the fund transfer was the function of the DDB’s Accounting Division.
“In the absence of the proper conduct of regular monitoring and reconciliation process, the DDB was unable to validate whether all IAs complied with the one-year period set in the MOA 9memorandum of agreement) to complete the project,” the COA noted.
