The Road Board has asked the National Bureau of Investigations to probe the misuse of funds of the previous officials of the agency.
“We have requested the NBI and other law enforcement agencies to investigate and file appropriate legal action against those individuals who have used spurious public documents to facilitate fund transfers,” the Road Board said in a statement.
“To prevent dissipation of MVUC funds and malfeasance in public office, the Office of the President is now exercising control and supervision over the Road Board,” it added.
The CoA audit observations on the alleged misuse of funds, referred to the transactions of the previous administrations from 2002 to 2013.
These audit observations were looked into by the new administration when it assumed office in August 2016.
The Road Board now has a new board members composed of Public Works Secretary Mark A. Villar, Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and Richard Necesario Sr. as representative of the private transport organizations.
Under the new leadership, the board rationalized coordinating system between the LTO, which collects the Motor Vehicle User’s charge (MVUC) and the Bureau of Treasury (BTr), which maintains special trust accounts into which the MVUC funds are deposited.
After almost one year from assuming office, the new Board reduced the unreconciled balances between the LTO collections and BTr certified deposits from P4.385 billion as of September 26, 2016 to P607 million or 86.15 percent as of August 24, 2017;
The new board also issued memorandum circular to all Road Board Officials and Staff prohibiting transactions with contractors and other private persons in the preparation of project proposals for MVUC funding and the facilitation and approval of funding requests and enjoining them that only duly authorized representatives of the project proponents may be given information on the status of their funding requests.
The board also sent letters to the Members of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the DPWH-District Engineering Offices (DEOs), informing them of the Board’s policy that no authority was granted to any individual to facilitate any approval and release of the corresponding funds.