85% of P4-B Yolanda funds liquidated, cleared, says DILG

Around 85 percent of the P4.055 billion spent for the rehabilitation of government facilities damaged by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) in 2013 has been liquidated and cleared, officials of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said on Friday.

Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and various local government units (LGUs) to which the DILG released funds for Yolanda rehabilitation have already liquidated about P3.455 billion.

Malaya issued the statement to clarify the findings of the 2018 Commission on Audit (COA) report that called out the DILG for its failure to liquidate around P1.06 billion of funds allotted for the Recovery Assistance for Yolanda (RAY) projects.

The RAY projects were launched in 2014 under the “Build Back Better” program of the administration of then President Benigno Aquino III and were intended for building disaster-resilient infrastructure.

In its 2018 audit report, the COA cited the “leniency” of the DILG in monitoring the liquidation of Yolanda funds, which supposedly led to an unliquidated balance of P219.6 million for the DPWH and P839.9 million for some LGUs.

Malaya, however, said the DPWH and the LGUs involved had made significant implementation of the projects from January to June this year, which missed the COA’s Dec. 31 cutoff dates and therefore were not reflected in the audit report.