COA: DOT failed to give public ‘optimum services’ in 2016

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Tourism (DOT) failed to provide “optimum” public service in 2016 as was unable to spend over 40% of its budget that year, a Commission on Audit (COA) report said.

In its audit report on the DOT released on Wednesday, June 28, the COA said 41.55% of the DOT’s 2016 budget or P1.5 billion was unused and reverted to the National Treasury.

“The reversion of lapsed/unutilized NCAs to National Treasury reflects Management’s failure to maximize the use of its authorized cash allocations/funds, thus, its inability to provide the public the optimum services it intended/expected to deliver,” COA said.

The tourism department received P3.664 billion for 2016 to fund payment of salaries, personal benefits, and operating expenses. It only spent P2.141 billion of the amount.

Of the P1.522-billion unspent funds, the Office of the Secretary (OSec) posted the biggest chunk of unused budget with P1.39 billion. Next is the DOT Region 4-B (P24.08 million), and DOT Region (P19.016 million).

Among the DOT regional offices in the country, the most efficient in fund utilization are DOT Region 11, which spent its full P25.56 million budget, followed by DOT-National Capital Region which underspent by only P38,840.66.

Experience Philippines

The COA also said the department obligated its funds for programmed projects only by December 2016, so these projects were not implemented that same year. 

These projects include the P649.468-million “Experience Philippines” campaign which it later scrapped following allegations of plagiarizing South Africa’s tourism campaign. The DOT ended its contract with McCann Philippines because of the controversy.

Aside from the McCann contract, other December 2016 obligations were the advertising campaign contracts with CNN (P49.8 million(, Discovery Network Asia Pacific (P100 million), and British Broadcasting Center (P54.868 million), COA said. 

“The above reported obligations and activities for implementation in the ensuing year were technically public spending without matching physical deliverables/accomplishments. As a result, no equivalent services were delivered to the public,” COA said.

COA recommended to DOT to be more thorough with its projects to ensure the efficient and wise use of its budget. 

In response to the COA findings, the DOT pointed to the 2016 national elections and the change in leadership as reasons for the unspent funds.

“There was a hiatus in the operations of the department,” the DOT said, adding this was only because it wanted to “insulate government transactions from political partisan activities.” – Rappler.com