Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 20) — The Commission on Audit has noted Davao City’s ₱4.5 billion in uncollected real property taxes and discrepancies in projects worth nearly ₱209.5 million.
The projects include a ₱76-million park that was incomplete but for which final payment was made, the audit body said in its 2022 report.
COA urged the city government to comply with the law and require offices to apply legal remedies to enforce the collection of delinquent taxes and to intensify the issuance of notices to property owners.
The report quoted the city government as saying it was exerting all efforts to address the matter.
State auditors also flagged discrepancies in projects with a total cost of ₱209.48 million.
Among these is the construction of the Doña Vicenta Park that had a contract amount of ₱76.445 million. It had a start date of June 2021 and its completion was in December 2022.
State auditors said it was “found to be not actually completed inconsistent with the statement of work accomplishment that supports the disbursement voucher for the final payment.”
COA noted that this goes against provisions of the Government Procurement Reform Act which stated that upon 95% completion of a project, “the procuring entity may create an inspectorate team to make preliminary inspection and submit a punch-list to the contractor in preparation for the final turnover of the project.”
The commission said the City Engineer’s Office-Construction Division did not correctly identify and report their actual accomplishment, going against transparency.
Meanwhile, COA also noted the delay in the completion of infrastructure projects worth ₱82.83 million, which it said goes against the law providing for the safeguarding of government resources against loss or wastage.
The projects included in this cost are the improvement of a barangay hall, the construction of a multi-storey classroom, and several water systems. Projects were delayed from seven to 460 calendar days.
Additionally, three water systems worth an aggregate amount of ₱4.484 million were found not operational, COA said. These water systems were in three separate schools.
There is also the issue of the purchase of goods in response to the COVID-19 pandemic amounting to ₱45.7 million which COA said was “without a written delegation of authority from the head of procuring entity… hereby casting doubt on the propriety and validity of the procurement transactions.”
The COA, in its report, called for adherence to government guidelines and the faithful monitoring and evaluation of projects.The report quoted concerned offices of the city government as promising to speed up the completion of the projects and a more strict adherence to guidelines.
