PILI, Camarines Sur --- Raising apprehension that the highly centralized 2009 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) could be prone to election use come 2010, a 12-member national network of non-government organizations last Friday conducted a sharing-workshop with DA regional field unit (RFU) here to promote more active participation by the civil society in the monitoring of projects under the agriculture department.

        The Caucus for Development NGO Networks (Code-NGO), using comparative data of the DA’s budget, concludes that the 2009 budget of the DA “is highly centralized, with funding concentrated in the GMA Commodity Programs controlled by the central office” which include 33 percent for irrigation projects, 25 percent for the GMA Rice Program and the combined budget for high-value commercial crops, livestock and fisheries which comprises 13 percent.

        On the other hand, the regular bureaus, RFUs and attached agencies of the DA will receive a significantly smaller share of the DA budget at 3 percent, 3 percent and 8 percent, respectively, the group said.

        The DA0s 2009 budget increased to 54.3 percent at P38.29B from P24.81B in 2008 of which in this year’s budget irrigation projects got the lion’s share of the allocation at P12.55B which is followed by the GMA Rice Program at P9.44B while the other GMA Commodity Program items for high-value commercial crops and livestock and fisheries at P3.30B or a total of P25.29B under the GMA Commodity Programs.

        The regular bureaus and RFUs are respectively allocated with P0.84B and P1.07B while the attached agencies will receive next year a budget allocation of P1.21B.

        “The DA bureaus and RFUs are not directly allocated funds to run programs as their budgets are only enough to cover their salaries and the most basic operating expense. These operating units thus have to rely on fund transfer from the central office, mainly through the commodity program. The DA budget structure provides an insight into the planning process within the department. Programs are centrally designed without the benefit of effective consultation and feedback mechanisms. RFUs have little flexibility in running locally designed programs given that funding is controlled by the GMA Commodity Program,” according to the Code-NGO paper.

        Patrick Lim, project manager of Code-NGO, explained that they focus on monitoring the DA’s budget as a project following the cotroversies attendant to the agriculture department because he said they wanted to assist in facilitating the delivery of projects to their members who are largely based in the rural areas.

        Lim said that they have undergone training regarding budget appreciation and evaluation under the tutorship of former Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin, who resigned in 2005 with other Cabinet secretaries called the “Hyatt 10”, before they were able to come up with the evaluation of the DA’s budget.

        Edgar R. Madrid, regional technical director for research and development of the Bicol RFU, explained that the DA planning and budgeting process is formulated in accordance with the priorities of the Medium-Term Philippine Development Program (MTPDP).

        Madrid said that the RFUs provide the basic information and budget at their own level and consolidated later in the department level and then integrated into the national level as part of the budget of the Executive Branch before it goes for review and approval in Congress.

        He said that the so-called highly centralized budget allows the agriculture secretary to respond to the needs of other parties in agriculture development like the local government units (LGUs) with the devolved agriculture units and the congressional districts.

        Madrid said the RFUs are channels and monitoring units under the projects of the office of the agriculture secretary in which they only see to it that the projects are delivered to the concerned parties requesting them and that these are properly implemented.

        But the Code-NGO expressed alarm that the proliferation of lump-sum budget items and the difficulty of accessing the budget information makes the DA budget less transparent, citing the 2007 Commission on Audit (COA) report on the DA that cited “weak accountability mechanism in some of the department’s programs.”

        They said that an overly centralized budget structure of the DA in 2007 also led to the uncoordinated acquisition of post-harvest facilities by the National Agribusiness Corporation that resulted in the non-utilization of P95 million worth of post-harvest facilities, further citing 2007 COA report.

        The 2007 COA report points to the lack of coordination between the source agency and the implementing agency on the kind of post-harvest facility to be used and the inadequate feasibility study on determining the real need of farmer-beneficiaries.

        Referring to the 2007 budget of the DA, the group said it contained roughly 57 percent lump-sum budget amounting to P22.56 billion (allocated for GMA Rice, GMA Corn, GMA High-Value Commercial Crops, Market Oriented Programs, Repair/Rehabilitation and Construction of Farm to Market Roads, Restoration/Rehabilitation of Existing NIA-assisted Irrigation Systems) which was difficult to track and monitor the release and utilization of DA funds.

        Lim said the Code-NGO looks forward to closer coordination with the DA to facilitate the on-time delivery of projects to the target beneficiaries as well as the identification of appropriate projects for farmers based on their actual needs. He said that they would continue conducting the sharing workshop with DA officials at the regional level and possibly with the central office officials to promote transparency and avoid the occurrence of more fund anomalies.