SPDA employees fear possible setbacks

COTABATO CITY – The rank and file of the Southern Philippines Development Authority, which is President Arroyo’s conduit for special projects in Moro communities, are worried of possible setbacks in the agency’s operation due to its alleged mismanagement by certain officials.

Employees of the SPDA again circulated yesterday written appeals to Malacañang to look into what is for them “questionable disbursements” of their operations money by a senior official of the agency.

Financial records supplied by the complainants indicate that the senior SPDA official who is the subject of their complaints has charged from their budget P1.7 million worth of expenses, justified as “incurred in line with duty” from Dec. 6, 2007 to April 18, 2008 alone.

Worse, records from SPDA’s Human Resource Management Office showed that the same official also worked out the employment in his office of his brother and two sons, which is a serious infraction of the government’s anti-nepotism rule.

The tension in the SPDA worsened last week when the same official announced a plan to transfer their main office in Davao City to Cagayan de Oro City.

The SPDA’s charter clearly identifies Davao City as the main operation center of the agency.

“President Arroyo has to immediately intervene in this problem now besetting us,” said a senior SPDA staffer.

Some of the complaining SPDA employees said the President should immediately overhaul the management core of their agency to make it more efficient in the handling of state funds earmarked for peace and development packages intended for poor Muslim communities in the troubled South.