Goals achieved? COA says performance audit on NTF-ELCAC needed

A performance audit should be conducted on funds allocated to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), the Commission on Audit (COA) told lawmakers Thursday.

COA Assistant Commissioner Martha Sese said this during the House deliberation on the proposed P13-billion COA budget for 2024 when asked by Kabataan party-list Representative Raoul Manuel about the auditing of NTF-ELCAC's funds, given that its funds are lodged across different agencies.

"We really need to assess [the performance of] the task force by itself, as a whole," Manuel said.

Sese agreed with Manuel.

"There is a need to conduct a government-wide and sectoral performance audit of NTF-ELCAC funds, covering more or less five years, to be able to conclude whether or not the goal of the NTF-ELCAC has been achieved," he said.

"We look forward to that period," Sese added.

Sese said since the NTF-ELCAC started implementing programs in 2020, its fund utilization has been low in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"They will have to catch up on the utilization of the fund," the COA official pointed out.

Sese said that the government-wide and sectoral performance audit on NTF-ELCAC should be done within three years.

In 2023, the NTF-ELCAC got a P10-billion budget, the same as in 2022.

The proposed P5.678-trillion national budget for 2024 allocates P9.7 billion for NTF-ELCAC, which serves as the government's anti-insurgency task force.

The  NTF-ELCAC releases barangay development funds for areas it deems free from communist rebels and other insurgent groups.

GMA News Online has sought comment from National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, who sits as NTF-ELCAC vice chairperson, but he has yet to respond as of posting time.  —KBK, GMA Integrated News