Crop protection project : USAID/Philippines

Audit report covers the period 1/78-10/82 and is based on document review and discussions with USAID/P and Philippine officials. Overall, progress has been made in upgrading the institutional capacity of the NCPC and the RCPC"s. Most of the planned technical assistance has been provided, a majority of project commodities have been procured, and crop protection activities have begun, e.g., the NCPC has conducted 5 crop protection courses at a farmer training center, published the results of six experiments, and is involved in 56 ongoing research projects. As of 8/82, 21 participants were working on U.S. Ph.D."s. Nevertheless, implementation problems have been numerous. Due to difficulties in identifying Ph.D. and M.S. candidates, the project was extended twice, the second time to 9/84, to enable all Ph.D. candidates to complete their degrees, and only 20 of 50 planned trainees will receive M.S. degrees. While 33 trainees did complete a diploma course developed for persons who could not meet M.S. program entrance requirements, official approval of the reprogramming of funds for the course was not documented. Project management by USAID/P has been unsatisfactory; commodity procurement and control was especially troublesome, raising questions about the $2.2 million expended for commodities. Control over the bidding process was poor, the lack of supporting documentation prevented the verification of commodity claims, and payments were made for ineligible commodities and freight charges. NCPC management of the project has also been poor; required reports and evaluations were not prepared and commodities were not properly marked, stored, inventoried, or distributed, resulting in significant shortfalls in both the quantity and value of commodities procured for the RCPC"s. Little cooperation between the NCPC and the RCPC"s took place. Research programs were not coordinated, research results were not transmitted from the NCPC to the RCPC"s, and there was little transmission of crop protection technology to farmers. Eleven recommendations address the problems noted above.