Ghost flood projects not new, COA gave warnings as early as 2017 – Chua

Rep. Joel Chua. | PHOTO: Official Facebook page of the House of Representatives of the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — The problem of flood control plans turning into ghost projects are not new as the Commission on Audit (COA) has been warning the country about the matter as early as 2017, Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua said on Tuesday.

Chua in his opening statement at the House of Representatives infra-committee hearing said that COA has released reports from 2017 to 2020 noting that there are different flood control projects that are either “delayed, defective, or totally unimplemented.”

Other media reports, Chua stated, also showed alleged irregularities in such infrastructure projects.

“Warnings started to come out as early as 2017.  The reports from the Commission on Audit (COA) from 2017 up to 2020 stated thousands of projects that are either delayed, defective, or totally unimplemented, which amount to hundreds of billions of pesos,” Chua said in Filipino.

“In 2018, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) also reported on the involvement of big contractors in flood control projects that were either delayed or were unfinished,” he added in Filipino.

The Manila lawmaker also reminded the public that the lawmakers from the 17th Congress — including the late former Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. — already discovered the flood control scam.

Chua was referring to Andaya’s revelation in December 2018 that corrupt public officials found back then a new corruption scheme through flood control projects — which was at P133 billion in the current national spending program.

Andaya said a town mayor from Bicol region had informed him that a member of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s cabinet facilitated the “parking” of P300 million for a flood mitigation project in his municipality.

READ: Flood control projects now new cash cows 

“In 2019, the House committee on appropriations itself discovered that many flood control projects are prone to what we call as budget insertion — projects that were inserted to the funding without clear consultation or basis,” he said in Filipino.

“AAccording to their report, the insertions for projects amounted to billions of pesos, which opened the way for greater possibility for corruption and misuse of funds,” he added in Filipino.  “To sum it up, this problem is not new, this is a problem that was inherited, accumulated, and was neglected.  Now, this seems to be a wound that resurfaced again because it was not treated.”

In COA’s annual audit report for 2017, the commission noted that the Duterte administration’s main thrust — the infrastructure program — is hampered by bureaucratic bottlenecks.

According to COA, an audit of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) showed that only a third of its P662.69-billion funding in 2017 was used — even as the department vastly improved its ability to earmark its budget for various purposes.

Affected projects in 2017 include flood control projects, school buildings, farm-to-market roads, and various road infrastructure.

READ: Despite ‘Build, Build, Build’ push, DPWH spent only a third of 2017 budget 

Andaya, meanwhile, questioned why the government approved a multimillion-peso flood control project for a river on a riverless plain in Sorsogon province.

According to the former lawmaker, he was perplexed at how several local infrastructure projects of the DPWH in Sorsogon were implemented without being flagged by the COA.

“This is the worst. A flood control project for a river has been started while they are still waiting for the river to be there,” Andaya said, showing photos of the flood mitigation project in Prieto Diaz town.

The irony on the other hand, Andaya said, was that Matnog was not given any allocation for flood control despite its vulnerability to flooding.

READ: Flood control project questioned 

The spotlight on flood control projects came after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during his fourth State of the Nation Address condemned government officials and firms for allegedly earning kickbacks at the expense of people being drenched in floodwaters during the rainy season.

The President’s remarks came after Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson warned that half of the country’s almost P2 trillion funds from 2011 for flood control projects may have been lost already — necessitating a thorough review of the projects. /jpv