ROXAS SEEKS PROBE INTO ANOTHER DA ANOMALY

Following the discovery of scandalous evidence proving the P728-million fertilizer fund scam, the Senate will investigate another controversy in the Department of Agriculture involving the misuse of hundreds of millions of pesos in the National Agribusiness Corp. (NABCOR), Liberal President Senator Mar Roxas said today.

He filed Senate Resolution No. 824, which will look into the transactions of NABCOR, which the Commission on Audit had found to be anomalous.

"Hindi nagtapos ang pangungurakot noong umalis si Joc-Joc sa DA. Itinuloy ng administrasyon ni Pangulong Arroyo ang maling paggamit ng pera ng taumbayan at nakita sa imbesigasyon na umabot ang kalokohan sa NABCOR (The corrupt practices didn't end with Joc-Joc's departure from the DA. The administration of President Arroyo continued its misuse of the people's money and investigation showed it spread to NABCOR)," he said.

Roxas noted the CoA report showing that some P300 million was disbursed by the DA for acquisition of post-harvest facilities, but these could not be validated by the auditing agency. On top of this, it was found that P95.167 million of post-harvest projects purchased by NABCOR were not used by farmers for being inapplicable and outmoded.

The 2007 CoA report also showed that P734.255 million was transferred from the DA to NABCOR, which in turn charged a 10% administrative fee when handing these to nongovernmental organizations and people's organizations, thus reducing the amount benefiting these groups.

Aside from these anomalies, the DA had taken P225.22 million from the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund and transferred this to the NABCOR for the implementation of a "Competitive Food Processing and Cold Chain Operation" project, despite NABCOR's insufficient capability and manpower to carry this out.

"Hindi pwede na basta-basta ang ganitong paglipat ng pondo mula sa DA papuntang NABCOR at mga iba't ibang grupo. Kailangan natin ng accountability at transparency dito (We can't simply allow these fund transfers from the DA to NABCOR and other groups. We need accountability and transparency here)," he said.

"Kung gusto nating gumanda ang buhay ng ating mga magsasaka at pakainin ang bawat Pilipino, siguraduhin muna natin na wasto ang paggamit ng pondo ng gobyerno (If we want to raise our agriculture sector and feed every Filipino, we have to ensure the proper use of government funds)," he added.