THE Department of National Defense (DND) has assured that the P19.812 million reported as unliquidated is intact and has been allocated for various projects of the agency.
Of the total, the DND said P4.43 million was allocated for a financial assistance program while P12.9 million was allocated for the establishment of a bamboo plantation at Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation Area.
The DND was reacting to the 2018 report of the Commission on Audit (COA) which said that the DND has an unliquidated balance of P19.812 million out of P161.726 million from various government agencies.
The Defense department said the financial assistance program is for personnel of the DND and its bureaus who were affected by the Typhoon Yolanda and the magnitude 7.2 earthquake which struck Cebu and Bohol in 2013.
“Of the total fund intended for the project, P2.89 million has already been granted to the beneficiaries pre-identified by the Office of the President. The total unliquidated balance amounts to P1.545 million. In order to fully liquidate the funds, COA requires waivers from the beneficiaries who are no longer keen on availing the financial assistance,” the DND said in a statement.
The department said it was having difficulty administering the financial grants due to incomplete personal data of the beneficiaries.
It said they have coordinated the matter with the COA particularly for the beneficiaries who no longer wish to avail of the financial assistance and of a few whose whereabouts have not been updated and can no longer be ascertained.
“In such cases, the funds will be appropriately returned to the Office of the President. Nevertheless, the Department is continuously exerting diligent efforts to locate them,” it said.
Meanwhile, the DND said the bamboo plantation project will push through in the coming months following the signing of agreement between the DND and DENR on April.
“We would like to assure the public that the funds under the management of the DND are issued to the appropriate beneficiaries and instrumentalities,” the DND said.
“We would also like to reiterate that we have adequately answered every observation raised by the COA in their 2018 Annual Audit Report during our exit conference. Unfortunately, the media organizations, which released the stories on the COA report, did not include the DND management response to the COA observations in their published articles,” it added. (Third Anne Peralta-Malonzo/SunStar Philippines)