STATE auditors have revealed that the Land Titling Computerization Project (LTCP) of the Land Registration Authority’s (LRA) has already raked in P23.267 billion as of Dec. 31, 2020 — 668 percent higher than the original project cost of P3.483 billion.
According to the LRA 2020 audit released August 4, service provider Land Registration System, Inc. (LARES) has collected P21.8 billion as of the yearend, while taxes due to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) amounted to P1.234 billion, and guarantee deposits payable from the LRA totaled P232.43 million.
“Despite huge discrepancy between project cost of P3.483 Billion and the amount already collected amounting to P21.8 Billion and the remaining balance representing guaranty deposit to LRA amounting to P232.4 million, or a total of P23.267 billion, including tax withheld as of Dec. 31, 2020, or 668 percent higher than the original project cost, documents were still not submitted to the audit team to justify propriety of the project based on the original proposal,” the Commission on Audit said.
While part of the audit report were reiterations of previous years’ findings regarding the LTCP implementation, the COA said the LRA management has not submitted any comment on the audit team’s observartions.
The project, implemented under a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) agreement, was signed between the LRA and LARES, which at the time was a consortium named Stradec Unisys FF Cruz and Confac (SUFC), on May 26, 2000.
It was supposed to usher in the automation of the processes and standardization of procedures of land registration in the whole country including the construction, repair and improvement of existing Registry of Deeds offices.
However, despite LRA’s issuance of four certificates of acceptance of the IT facility (CAIFs) in favor the LARES, the audit team said none of these was supported by documents necessary for the review, validation, and evaluation of work accomplished.
Not submitted were supporting documents to the contract including the complete set of approved plans, technical specifications, breakdown of the approved budget for the contract, estimates and cost analysis and the detailed computations of the contract time.
“Consequently, COA could not perform auditorial, legal and technical review on the construction /improvement of RoD offices … whether the infrastructure facilities as built and developed by LARES, Inc. were delivered on time, in line with the appropriate quality standards and in accordance with relevant contractual specifications,” the COA pointed out.
The COA added that the objective of the computerization project was not achieved because of delay in deliverables on administrative support applications systems including Human Resource Management System (HRMS), Physical Resource Management System (PRMS), and Financial Management Information System (FMIS) “resulting in various system errors and operational inefficiencies.”
