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THE
Commission on Audit (COA) has bewailed the failure of
the Office of the President and a number of government
agencies to implement programs aimed at eliminating all
forms of discrimination against women despite being
given the mandate to spend portion of their funds for
the purpose.
The
Dangerous Drugs Board, the National Museum and the Power
Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. were
among those named by the COA for failing to comply with
the provisions of the General Appropriations Act (GAA)
of 2007.
The COA
annual audit report said the defense department
partially complied with the law when it spent only P4.8
million for Gender and Development (GAD) programs for
the year covered by the audit.
Also,
the Navy was criticized for delaying the formulation of
GAD programs.
More
agencies were expected to be included on the list of
noncomplying offices once the COA releases in full the
annual audit report for last year.
Under
the budget law, all government offices, bureaus and
other instrumentalities are required to allocate 5
percent of their respective budget allocation to finance
GAD programs in 2007.
Local
governments, state universities and colleges and
government-owned and -controlled corporations are not
exempted from this provision of the 2007 GAA.
In its
Malacañang audit report, the COA noted that the “failure
of management to prepare plans for programs and
activities related to GAD,” adding that this does not
conform with Section 30 of the national appropriations
law of 2007.
The law
provides that all government agencies should formulate
GAD plan that would address gender issues “within their
concerned sectors or mandate.”
It also
instructs agencies to comply by implementing all
provision of the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing
Platform for Action; Millennium Development Goals;
Philippine plan for gender responsive development;
Framework Plan for Women; and the 10- point legacy
agenda of the Arroyo government.
“The
cost of implementation of GAD plans should have been
taken from the concerned agency’s 2007 appropriations,”
the COA said. In the DND audit report, it was gathered
that the department was mandated to allocate P28.8
million or 5 percent of its P576,543,000 budget for GAD.
“The DND
set aside only P4.8 million, or approximately 1 percent
of total appropriations for GAD, instead of the mandated
amount of P28.8 million,” the report noted.
The DND
listed a total 13 projects for its GAD programs, but
only two, a gender-awareness training program and a
gender-sensitivity project, were actually implemented.
In the
case of the Navy, COA auditors said: “Delay in the
formulation of the GAD deprived Navy personnel of its
benefits that could have been derived from GAD-related
activities.”
“PN
[Navy] conducted a seminar with the Commission on the
Role of Filipino Women and the Development Academy of
the Philippines for 40 personnel. Since not all Navy
units were represented in the said workshop, it is
assumed that some Navy units may have no knowledge of
the existence of GAD projects,” the report added. |
