INFRASTRUCTURE projects in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) were found inefficient due to faulty engineering activities and poor planning of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the ARMM.

The Commission on Audit (COA) report on the regional autonomous government, the DPWH-ARMM is failing in its mandate to efficiently roll out its projects in the region.

“Implementation of infrastructure projects was found to be inefficient and ineffective due to inadequate detailed engineering activities and poor project locations,” the report read.

When auditors reviewed the different contracts of the agency, the Commission found that there are projects whose point of references “were not properly identified.”

Some memoranda of agreements between DPWH-ARMM and the local government units only stated the municipality or barangay (village) where the project will be implemented “without details which we found to be vague in nature.”

“Projects are very prone to possible duplication and therefore, inventory of implemented projects could not be properly monitored,” COA said.

For example, locations for solar driers and multi-purpose pavements were found to be not viable for public use. Some projects were also constructed in private sites where the right-of-way was not clearly considered, COA commented.

The Commission also raised that infrastructure projects did not pass through detailed engineering requirements such as survey, pre-site investigation, soils and foundations investigations, or construction materials investigation.

“Quality test on completed projects was also not executed to detect any irregularity in the implementation of the projects,” the Commission reported.

COA asked DPWH-ARMM to scrutinize well and examine the contracts and to conduct detailed engineering activities on proposed projects.