COA looking for missing ‘kalakal’ from Muntinlupa demolition

The Commission on Audit (COA) wants to know where retrievable materials or “kalakal” went when Muntinlupa City contracted a 11.3million demolition works for eight infrastructure projects.

COA said in the 2016 annual audit report for Muntinlupa City, it had not received a listing of retrievable materials from the demolition such as deformed bars, roofing materials, steel casements, doors, electrical supplies among others, saying income may still be derived from their sale.

In the same audit report, COA lamented that 23 of 70 infrastructure projects costing 1329.5 million were not completed on time due to the election ban imposed in last year’s national polls.

According to COA the delay in the completion of the project and the excess of two to seven percent in the value-added tax component of the approved budget for the contract for 42 projects increased the cost by 19.277 million.

State auditors disclose that work on the eight of the projects should have not been suspended because notice to proceed (NTP) were issued prior to the prohibited period of construction due to the elections.

Several other projects were delayed due to suspension of work imposed by the city for various reasons.

According to COA, many of the reasons given for the suspension of work were unnecessary and unjustified and had only resulted to the delayed completion of vital infrastructure projects.

“Reasons for work suspension such as right-of-way, presence of informal settlers and completion of a certain phase of a project for various reasons as well as the initiation of procurement for a subsequent phase of a project when the initial phase has not been completed were evidences of weaknesses in the planning, implementation and monitoring of infrastructure projects,” COA auditors stated.

The audit body said the factors that caused the delay of project should have been cleared before the start of the projects.

“Consequently, the projects were not completed or will not be completed as planned,” noted COA.

Among the projects affected were the constructions of a two-story day care in Laguerta, Tunasan, the Bagong Silang Elementary School in Sucat, multi-purpose building in Sto. Niño Phase 3 and several others.