Sino Nakinabang? Performance Audit Needed On P3-B Compost Machines

Every year for about three years in a row, Electric-Powered Composting Machines had been distributed to Farmers Groups and Local Government Units all over the country supposedly to turn wastes into Organic Fertilizer.
The machines which reportedly costs over P1-M each are part of a P3-B yearly program of the Department of Agriculture with funds coming from the DA’s Rice Program.
Reports from the field, including farmers’ groups who had been given the equipment even without them asking for it, said that most of the equipment had not been used mainly because of the huge expense for the electric power to run it.
Many of the machines were either left idle in stockrooms or its electric motors cannibalized for other purposes.
“Mas effective pa kung bulate na lang gamitin namin sa composting kesa makina na ito,” said one rice farmer who brought this issue to my attention.
Even the National Organic Agriculture Board (NOAB) was obviously not consulted by the DA before such a huge amount was allocated for the machines fabricated by a company based in Negros Occidental.
This is such a huge amount of money intended for Agricultural Productivity that is being channeled into a program whose output and benefits had not been audited and validated.
It is high time for the DA under the new Secretary, Francisco Tiu Laurel, jr., to order an inventory of these machines and validate its effectiveness in contributing to the Organic Agriculture Program of the country.
#LetThereBeTransparency!
(Photos downloaded from the website of DA-BSWM show the Electric Powered Composting Machines being distributed.)