10:47
The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Monday said it will resume
lending to farmers under the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement
Fund (ACEF) once the fund is transferred to government financing
institutions.
“ACEF will start processing
requests for grants and scholarships on September 1,” Agriculture
Secretary Proceso Alcala said in an emailed statement Monday.
The decision was made during the August 16 special en banc meeting of
the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agricultural and Fisheries
Modernization (COCAFM) with the DA and the Department of Budget and
Management (DBM).
The available ACEF fund is
P1.9 billion, of which 60 percent is for grants, 30 percent for loans,
and 10 percent for scholarships, the department noted.
ACEF was created by Republic Act 8178, with its funding coming from all
duties collected from importations of agricultural products under the
minimum access volume (MAV) mechanism.
While
the ACEF was intended to make farmers and fisherfolk competitive in the
market, it has been used by “unscrupulous individuals to abuse the
funds,” COCAFM chair Sen. Francis Pangilinan said in a statement Friday.
“Medyo nalulugi lang ang pamahalaan dahil sinamantala ito ng ibang
indibidwal at grupo na 'di naman kwalipikado na makatanggap mula sa
ACEF,” the senator said.
“’Yan ang ating sinikap
na maayos nang sa gayon, e, di naman parang gripo ang pagluwal ng pera
mula sa kaban ng ACEF,” Pangilinan added.
The
DA, DBM, and Department of Finance are signing a memorandum of agreement
at the end of August, defining the functions of each agency in the
collection and distribution of ACEF money.
“The
[agreement] will ensure that the collected MAVs will go straight to the
ACEF and not remitted to the general fund of the national budget as what
happened from 2007 to 2012,” according to the Agriculture Department.
“I’d like to have a regular monitoring once every two months so we
properly ensure that we are going in the right directions,” Pangilinan
said.
Pangilinan added they would meet monthly in the next three months to ensure efficient releases of funds.
“Tapos na ang panahon ng panlilinlang at panloloko. Mahigpit na ang
proseso. At ngayon, mailalabas na ang pondo para matugunan ang
pangangailangan ng ating mga magsasaka at mangingisda,” the senator
noted.
Last Tuesday, the Agriculture Department said it is tightening the reins on all new applications for loans under the ACEF as it struggles to restructure old accounts, which could be more than 50.
A moratorium on ACEF releases was issued in 2009 after the Commission
on Audit said the Agriculture Department extended loans to hundreds of “ghost borrowers” or companies from 2000 to 2009.
Last year, the government announced new ACEF loan guidelines – one
important feature is the revised guidelines on charging an interest rate
of 4 percent per annum subject to the approval of COCAFM. Borrowers
were also required to provide collateral for their loans.
Under the new rules, the Senate and House committees on agriculture and food are part of the approval process.
The use of the fund – initially worth P281 million – was about to
expire in 2005. It was extended to December 2007, and again until 2015. —
Marc Jason Cayabyab/VS, GMA News
