COA notes ‘incomplete records’ of NPC-transferred lots at PSALM
The Commission on Audit (COA) has noted the incomplete records and inventory of real estate properties transferred by the National Power Corporation (NPC) to its successor-firm Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM).
The state audit agency thus opined that “deficiency” in records and land titles could have been one of the major reasons why PSALM was not able to successfully carry out the divestment of the NPC properties.
In particular, COA cited the “incomplete records of all the 6,160 lots transferred from NPC,” emphasizing further that “only 720 lots are documented with the transfer certificates of title (TCTs) turned over to PSALM.”
It also stressed that “physical inventory of lots, land survey and profiling were not conducted since the creation of PSALM to ascertain validity, existence and accuracy.” The state auditor similarly observed that “the land area shown in figures in the TCT differs with the land area in words, showing a total discrepancy of 73,222 square meters in the land area of inventoried TCTs.”
COA thus recommended that PSALM shall “identify and confirm with NPC the final list of PSALM real estate properties,” and “conduct a regular ocular inspection and inventory of these real estate properties and submit a copy of the report to COA.”
The other “to-do list” for PSALM would be to carry out an immediate “land survey and profiling to facilitate the titling of properties.”
It must also request NPC on the copies of the remaining land TCTs “for complete documentation,” and must further “coordinate with the local registry of deeds on the difference in figures and in words of the land areas in the TCTs.”
The sale of the NPC properties is among the sources of additional revenues that PSALM could still lean on to trim its scale of liabilities prior to the end of its corporate life cycle in 2026.
There had been previous announcements on the proposed disposal of properties, but that did not gain much traction so far.