About P75 million in ‘ghost’ farm-to-market road projects in Mindanao have been uncovered by the Department of Agriculture.
The DA earlier flagged two projects in the Davao Region and Zamboanga City dated 2021 and 2023.
‘We are talking about five kilometers of road. That’s what we have seen so far,’ Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. yesterday told dzBB.
‘We have identified the contractors. But these are small-time contractors,’ he added.
The contractors are not included in President Marcos’ list of 15 contractors who cornered 20 percent of the P545-billion budget for flood control projects, he noted.
Tiu Laurel maintained that the suspicious road projects are isolated cases and do not reflect widespread issues in the state agency.
‘Technically, these are very small contracts. I think there’s one worth P30 million and then the others had P15 million each,’ he said.
Funds came from the DA’s budget and the projects were implemented by the Department of Public Works and Highways, he noted.
The Philippines, he said, is lacking 62,000 kilometers of farm-to-market roads.
Auditing the projects is challenging since these are located in far-flung and hard-to-reach areas, Tiu Laurel stressed.
The ongoing Senate inquiry into anomalous flood control projects nationwide has prompted the DA to initiate an audit of farm road projects.