THE Commission on Audit has rejected the purchase of P1.5 million worth of bottled water in Lanao del Sur for its disaster preparedness for calamities that are yet to come.
In a 2014 report, CoA said the bottled water transaction was unnecessary since it was meant for stock purposes.
It added that the purchase of the local government of Lanao del Sur of such items using its local disaster risk reduction and management fund was not allowable.
The report said 30 percent of the local government’s P72.645-million disaster risk and management budget went for quick response fund, while 70 percent was allocated for mitigation fund.
But state auditors noted Section 3.4 of CoA Circular 2012-002 provides that one of the purposes of the local disaster risk reduction and management fund is for “relief and recovery programs in communities or areas stricken by disasters, calamities, epidemics or complex emergencies.”
They cited the accomplishments of 2014 Lanao del Sur’s disaster risk fund which had greatly contributed to strengthening the mechanisms and the capacity of local disaster risk reduction and management councils.
But the same reports said that “results of the audit made on calamity fund showed that a transaction P1,504,000 was made for procurement of bottled waters in preparation of calamity.”
“It was then noted that at that period, no calamity was observed nor declared. Further, the nature of the transaction and items procured for stock was not considered as mitigation nor calamity preparedness program for which the transaction was disallowed in audit,” state auditors said.
CoA issued a notice of disallowance to Lanao del Sur and compelled and required officials concerned to return the P1.5 million spent for the bottled water purchase to the government coffers.