COA flags PCA for idle fertilizer, inefficient coco planting program

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) has called out the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) over poor storage of unused 5,280 fertilizer bags as well as poor implementation of its coconut planting program.

In its 2017 audit report, COA said PCA Regional Office 10 (Northern Mindanao)  received a total of 1,320 bags of Wellgrow organic fertilizer amounting to P527,000 in March last year but these were not distributed to the intended farmer-beneficiaries.

Instead, the products were just stored in the houses of barangay officials and cooperative chairmen as PCA Regional Office 10 admitted it did not have a warehouse.

According to COA, the lack of proper storage has caused the organic fertilizers’ deterioration, noting that some of the sacks were already busted and needed replacements to preserve their quality.

There were also 3,960 bags of Coco Peat fertilizer in PCA Regional Office 13 (CARAGA) which remain undistributed or unutilized, COA said.

An inspection by the audit team also revealed that “the fertilizers were exposed to rain, flood and theft and that there was no proper piling system and some bags were damaged.”

COA said it could not be verified how many bags of the fertilizer had already been distributed to the beneficiaries due to “absence of monitoring reports and non-conduct of physical count.”

The audit team “could not count the fertilizers on hand during the inspection since these were scattered on the ground and some were already distributed by contractual coconut development officers.“

COA urged PCA to “plan properly the procurement of agricultural inputs, to ensure timely delivery and use thereof by the farmer-beneficiaries to prevent wastage of government resources.”

In the same report, COA reprimanded the PCA over the poor implementation of its accelerated coconut planting and replanting project (ACPRP), which was marred by delayed delivery of coconut seedlings, payment of incentives to unqualified beneficiaries, and planting of seedlings without any soil assessment resulting in high coconut seedling mortality.

COA noted that it was in October 2015 when the PCA awarded the contract for the purchase of 377,000 coconut seedlings in the amount of P9.99 million for the implementation of ACPRP in Region 13.

Under the contract, the delivery of the seedlings must be completed by April 9, 2016 but the supplier requested  for an extension two times or up to June 30, 2017 to complete the delivery.

“Despite the two extensions of the delivery date, the supplier had only delivered 185,075 seedlings or 49.09 percent of the total seedlings to be delivered under the contract...As of audit date, no additional delivery was made,”  COA said.

“The delay in the delivery of the seedlings adversely affected the attainment of the objective of the program which was to increase coconut seedlings planted,” it added.

Apart from this, state auditors said PCA paid a total of P4 million in incentives to supposed farmer-participants in Zamboanga del Sur even when they did not meet the requirement under the agency’s Participatory Coconut Planting Project (PCPP), a component of the ACPRP.

About P254,046 worth of coconut seedlings also died as they were planted on  unsuitable land.

Meanwhile, out of the 2,475 seedlings received by the farmers-participants in Sta. Maria, Ilocos Sur, 1,707 seedlings costing P44,382 died “due to lack of care as some were just planted and was left to grow without watering and some were eaten by animals like goats, cows and carabaos due to absence of fence as protection.”