Hussin lifts order freezing ARMM funds

COTABATO CITY — Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Parouk Hussin lifted the other day an earlier order freezing remaining funds in the ARMM’s coffer, certain that the regional government has been cleared of all remnants of the past administration who had access to the region’s depository banks.

Even so, the new administration will still initiate punitive actions against former officials, including regional secretaries, who may have embezzled state funds entrusted to them by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

The ARMM government had P22 million in accounts payable and a cash balance of only about P500,000 in banks when President Arroyo officiated Hussin’s symbolic installation here last Jan. 5.

Sources said a big bulk of the region’s money was drawn as cash advances by outgoing regional officials shortly before Hussin assumed as governor last Dec. 4.

Hussin, in ordering the banks to allow devolved agencies to withdraw their operating funds, emphasized that initially, only money intended for statutory obligations, such as salaries and other programmed expenditures, can be drawn from the accounts of each of the offices under the ARMM’s executive department.

Only the ARMM’s Department of Health has received its operating funds for November and December 2001 from the national government.

Lawyer Nabil Tan, ARMM’s newly appointed executive secretary, said other devolved agencies in the region have yet to receive their November and December 2001 funds.

Sources from the DBM said allocations for regular maintenance and operating expenses in the last two months of 2001 were significantly delayed not only in the ARMM, but in many national agencies as well due to "shortfalls" in revenue-generation.