The chairperson of the House of Representatives committee on good government and public accountability on Monday vowed to prioritize the passage of a bill abolishing the Road Board to prevent the alleged misuse of billions of pesos of the Road User’s Tax collected by the government.
Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, the panel’s chairperson, said the Lower House will immediately work on the passage of House Bill (HB) 6236 authored by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.
The bill proposes to abolish the Road Board and transfer its functions to the Department of Public Works and Highways and to the Department of Transportation.
“The Road Board is allegedly a source of corruption for some of its officials since it was established and I totally agree with the proposal for its abolition. Many previous officials of the Road Board have allegedly amassed millions of pesos thru kickbacks,” said Pimentel, also one of the co-authors of the bill.
The Congress will resume session today (Tuesday) and will adjourn sine die on June 1 to end the Second Regular Session of the 17th Congress.
Alvarez, the bill’s author, said that over the years, the Commission on Audit (CoA) has unearthed signs of alleged illegal utilization of the Road Fund, estimated to have amounted to a total of P90.72 billion from 2001 to December 2012.
“Obviously, the Road Board is just another layer of bureaucracy, which became another avenue for graft and corruption,” said Alvarez.
Among others, Alvarez noted that the CoA reports that some P515.50 million of the Road Fund was used in 2004 to 2008 for payment of salaries, allowances, maintenance and other operating expenses, which were properly chargeable to the regular budget.
In 2011, P62.52 million of the Road Fund was used for the Road Board’s engineering and administrative overhead expenses, Alvarez said quoting the CoA findings
Alvarez added that in 2013, the CoA also uncovered findings of irregularities in the use of more than P1.66 billion of the funds.
Moreover, Alvarez said CoA has pointed out that from 2001 to 2010 there were discrepancies amounting to P1.495 billion in the total collection of Road User’s Tax between the collections declared by the Land Transportation Office and the certification from the Bureau of Treasury.
In filing HB 6236, Alvarez said that the Road Board was created under Republic Act (RA) 8794, which imposed a motor vehicle users’ charge on owners of all types of motor vehicles.
The law provides that the board is tasked to ensure prudent and efficient management and use of the special funds known as the Road User’s Tax (or Road Fund), which is earmarked solely and exclusively for road maintenance and improvement of road drainage, installation of efficient traffic lights and road safety devices, and air pollution control.
Under the bill, all collections of the Road Fund shall be “remitted to the National Treasury and shall be appropriated to the proper government departments such as the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Department of Transportation, which will implement the road safety measures and projects.”
On the other hand, the bill retained the original provision of the law which requires that funds collected under RA 8794 pertaining to the Trust Fund for Pollution Control, shall be appropriated to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.