BFAR lost P33 million in uncollected income

CEBU, Philippines - The personnel of the Cebu-based Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in Central Visayas has failed to collect a total of P33.6 million in supposed government revenue from the rent of fishpond owners for the past years.

The Commission on Audit also found out that the BFAR-7 personnel were lax in the collection of annual rent from the fishpond operators who have a Fishpond Lease Agreement with the government.

There are several individuals in Cebu and other parts of the region who have a contract with BFAR for the operations of fishponds in different places.

Fisheries Administrative Order No. 197 provides that once the fishpond operators will fail to pay the annual rent and surcharge for two consecutive years, without justifiable causes, the lease contract shall be terminated.

When the state auditors reviewed the financial transactions of BFAR-7 they found out that the uncollected rent from fishpond operators had already reached P33,657,912.50 as of December 31, 2009.

In seven other regions of the country the BFAR also experienced a similar problem. It was learned that the total amount of uncollected fishpond rent had reached P236.2 million.

COA has recommended that BFAR officials should intensify the collection of receivables or to terminate the lease contracts and to forfeit the bonds of those who failed to pay their annual rent and surcharge for two consecutive years or more.

The state auditors also recommended that BFAR should assign some of its personnel to monitor the collection of the revenue to increase collections in the future.

But the BFAR officials said they had been continuously monitoring the collection of rent from the fishpond operators, although the people concerned appealed to them that they cannot yet pay their obligations.

Some of the reasons cited by many of the fishpond operators why they failed to settle their obligations is because they are involved in fishpond conflicts and victims of calamities who filed requests for condonation of penalties.

The concerned fishpond operators prefer to wait for the decision of their cases before settling their obligations.

It was also reported that BFAR lacks personnel to monitor, inspect and issue demand letters to delinquent fishpond leaseholders.

But while the BFAR-7 is not so effective in the collection of supposed government revenues the record showed that they made illegal disbursement of funds amounting to P10.6 million which were spent for the Collective Negotiation Agreement incentives and honoraria.  (THE FREEMAN)