The Commission on Audit has called the attention of the National Housing Authority over a questionable P10.6-billion housing program for the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police.
In a 2017 audit report, CoA found irregularities in 28 housing projects worth some P10.62 billion for the two institutions, saying the NHA failed to conduct a proper evaluation of contractors, and even awarded contracts to companies with limited capacity to handle big projects in Bulacan’s Bocaue and Pandi.
“Verification of the documents… showed that the developers are not technically and financially capable to undertake the housing projects. These are manifested by the deficiencies in the documents submitted and non-compliance to some requirements by the developers on the evaluation of financial capacity,” it read.
CoA, however, did not identify the involved contractor.
“Developer A” did not disclose the cost of the contract and the owners of ongoing projects, while the documents for five AFP and PNP housing projects given to “Developer B” had not been evaluated.
On the other hand,“Developer C” was awarded a project in Bocaue at P726.4 million and three shelter projects at P2.141 billion even if the developer had a license limiting its projects worth P100 million.
According to CoA, such violated the provisions in the Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board’s allowable ranges of contract costs.
CoA’s other observations were the absence of manpower and equipment lists, and lack of net financial contracting capacity in the terms of reference of contracts.
CoA junked NHA’s justification that the contractors’ licenses were just “secondary references, and that the equipment and personnel lists and net financial contracting capacity were unnecessary.
In addition, the state auditors flagged the NHA’s loans for a project that reached P4.612 billion as of December 2017, of which half of the amount was not backed by complete dossiers.
The loans were payments for 20 AFP and PNP housing projects and one informal settler housing project.
The CoA findings showed 51 percent or P2.358 billion had no individual loan agreements.