THE Commission on Audit (COA) has asked the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to explain the basis for the distribution of 159 out of 180 agricultural machineries and farm equipment worth P216.43 million funded out of a program intended to boost local sugar production.
Government auditors were told that the farm machines were distributed among “block farms” or consolidated small sugarcane farms in the Visayas but the SRA failed to show any document that provides the guidelines as well as the responsibilities of the farmer beneficiaries or what was expected of them.
A briefer in the SRA website says block farms were created by combining several smaller sugarcane farms to achieve plantation-scale production with an aggregate area of between 30 to 50 hectares through economy of scale.
Under the Block Farm Program, the SRA provides guidance and other forms of assistance to help ensure productivity and that agrarian reform beneficiaries will retain ownership of the land.
However, the audit team found that the farm equipment were given away to program beneficiaries without a single memorandum of agreement (MOA) or a statement of policy setting the guidelines of the distribution and defining the obligations of those who received them.
Records showed among the equipment purchased by the SRA for the program were 44 sugarcane grabbers (P108.62 million), 37 farm tractors (P64.32 million), 62 farm implements (P35.32 million), and fertilizer applicator (P8.16 million). All the procurements took place between March and October 2021.
“The distribution was not covered by a MOA between the SRA Visayas and the beneficiaries concerned. As such, the responsibilities/obligations of the parties involved were not properly defined to ensure achievement of the [program] objective,” the COA said.
