DA creates system to loop regional financial statements

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture (DA) is creating a system that would loop the financial statements of all regions to avoid unspent funds.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said an internal control division system is being established and is ready to be implemented next year.

“We are coming up with a system that would loop all finance departments of all the regions, that on a daily basis, I can have a rundown of their total budget, expenditures and the remaining available fund,” Piñol said.

Piñol emphasized that fund allocations from the Department of Budget and Management go directly to every region, making it hard for the head office to assess every operation.

“There’s something wrong with the system and with the way how funds are being monitored. Sometimes, when (the fund) comes to the region, the central office are not able to monitor the performance of every region,” he said.

The Agri chief said a similar system was established during his term as governor of North Cotabato.

“I have to do this because it’s quite difficult to call on regional officials on a quarterly basis to report,” Piñol added.

Furthermore, Piñol said the system would fast-track the accomplishments of every region and would have an available fund disbursement, any given time of the day.

“This will also empower me to make a hands on assessment of the performance of the different regions and to avoid unspent funds and backlogs at the end of every year,” Piñol said.

The DA continues to catch up with its budget utilization for the year following the large backlog by the prior administration.

Piñol earlier said the 2017 budget was affected by the P7 billion unspent fund from the prior administration.

“The past performance of the DA in terms of absorption and expenditure also affected our budget ceiling. The finance team based their budget ceiling on the previous administration performance,” he added.

The DA has already proposed a 30 percent increase in its 2017 budget to P61 billion after the Senate asked Piñol to submit a revised proposal for its budget allocation next year, with priorities on infrastructure and livestock sub-sectors.

During last month’s budget hearing in Congress, the approved budget of the DA and its attached agencies for 2017 was only P46 billion.

For this year, the agriculture department has a P54-billion fund allocation.