The Commission on Audit (COA) has called the attention of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) over the P315.7 million disbursed to various government agencies and local government units (LGUs) but remained unliquidated as of Dec. 31, 2022.
The funds were disbursed as financial assistance in the operation and maintenance of drug rehabilitation centers and other projects in line with Section 75 of Republic Act No. 9165, the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Also, COA pointed out DDB’s P2,709,886.33 dormant or non-moving accounts.
In its 2022 annual audit report, COA said that of the P315.73 million unliquidated funds, P121,391,330.05 was disbursed to national government agencies, while P194,342,339.32 was given to LGUs.
"The unliquidated balances of P315,733,669.37 arose because the submission of the Report of Checks Issued (RCI) and Report of Disbursement (RD) by the implementing agencies (IAs) were not monitored by the Accounting Division (AD) in 2022. Only two IAs were monitored," the COA said.
It pointed out that DDB’s failure to properly monitor the unliquidated balances was due to lack of established internal procedures on the manner and frequency of conducting the prescribed monitoring and reconciliation of activities.
It said there was also no proper coordination between and among the DDB personnel on the turn-over of inspection reports and the IAs' liquidation reports that are submitted to the chairman or secretariat of the DDB.
Without proper monitoring and reconciliation, COA said that DDB failed in validating whether all IAs complied with the completion of the projects so they can timely demand for the liquidation and refund of excess funds.
Some liquidation documents submitted by the IAs were beyond the 60-day period after the full utilization of the financial assistance, it said.
COA recommended that the DDB management direct its AD to conduct regular and periodic verification of fund transfers and include specific instructions to IAs on the date and manner of submission of the notice to proceed, bank deposit slips, and liquidation documents, among other things.
It said that DDB has committed to strengthen its mechanism of compliance.