ILOILO City – The Department of Health (DOH) in Region 6 saw nothing wrong with spending over P1 million for catered meals.
The Commission on Audit (COA) 2020 audit report flagged DOH-6’s “unnecessary expenditure” of P1,080,343.87 for catering services during meetings.
COA said food catering was “not essential” in the conduct of activities “since the participants were in their respective work stations and performed their usual functions.”
However, according to Cristine Abuzo, accountant at DOH-6, the said amount was a contract price, not an expenditure.
She noted that the COA findings covered “over 100 meetings and orientations” between May and December 2020.
The catering services were planned in 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, abuzo pointed out.
Come pandemic wherein mobility was restricted, the DOH-6 held “blended” conferences – some participants attending online, others physically present, Abuso emphasized.
She also cited a regional order that catering services shall be provided during face-to-face activities within their office.
“The conduct of activities such as training, workshops, seminars, orientation and meetings within DOH-6 office shall be provided with catering services however a minimum public health standard for the conduct of these activities will be observed,” part of the regional order read.
Also, according to the order, as long as there are “at least 10 participants from the regional office” during virtual meetings with local government units (LGUs) and national government agencies, catering services are allowed.
Thus, Abuzo said, “Ang ginpakaon for the catering were those who attended here at the (regional) office.”
“Those who connected online were not given food naman,” she added.
According to Abuzo, they have furnished a copy of the regional order to the audit commission.
HFEP
On the other hand, DOH-6 also responded to the COA relative to the former’s supposed lack of monitoring and delayed commencement of project implementation of Health Facility Enhancement Program (HFEP) in Western Visayas.
COA referred to the P898,058,214.00 worth of projects such as construction of various health centers and medical equipment from 2016 to 2019.
Through a memorandum of agreement (MOA), the amount was all downloaded to the LGUs for their implementation, according to Engr. Rochelle Ang, regional head of the HFEP.
Ang noted that 324 of the projects were already completed while 56 are not yet implemented, as of Dec. 30, 2020.
As to the supposed lack of closer monitoring of the projects’ implementation, Ang admitted that their unit is lacking in terms of human resource.
In fact, including Ang, there are only two engineers at the unit, while another is in-charge of the equipment.
Ang noted that 1 HFEP engineer who would monitor the projects is also deployed in every province via MOA.
Moreover, Ang added they are also conducting monthly coordination meetings with LGUs particularly with the municipal and provincial engineers.
The HFEP head said the full monitoring was done by the LGUs through the municipal engineer. She noted that most of the projects such as barangay health stations are located in far-flung areas.
To address delays, Ang is banking on the Supreme Court’s Manadas ruling where most of the functions of the government agencies will be devolved to the LGUs, thus providing them enough human resource and technical personnel./PN
