WHEN the National Dairy Authority (NDA) gave away 4,297 heads of pregnant cows worth P586.36 million from 2011 to 2015, the idea was to improve the country’s dairy production.
Government auditors, however, said the program is being milked dry because the NDA has failed to ensure proper implementation of the program, resulting in the low collection of payments from farmer-beneficiaries or multiplier farm partners.
The idea behind the Palit-Baka program was to let dairy multiplier farms raise the cows, produce milk for additional income, and pay the NDA back in the form of a heifer or young cow for further propagation.
What looked good on paper did not materialize since from 2016 to 2019, the NDA has only received back 887 animals as repayment or a measly 20 percent collection performance.
This meant 3,410 cows were given out without any return in NDA’s investment.
The audit team said there were only 376 heads paid back in 2016; 236 in 2017; 69 in 2018; and 206 in 2019.
Ender Section 6 of its memorandum of agreement with the multiplier farms the NDA had the option to repossess the dairy animal without compensation in the event of non-repayment but the agency has not exercised that right.
