Is Acef a failure or not? Answer in facts, figures

This is in reaction to the news item titled “Yap: Low repayment rate does not make Acef a scam or a failure.” (Inquirer, 9/22/11)

Rep. Arthur C. Yap, former agriculture secretary, appealed for clear-headedness on the issue of the P10-billion special fund that’s envisioned to enhance agricultural competitiveness and rice self-sufficiency. In response to Yap’s allegation that the matter has been raised as another attempt at “twisting the issue for political vendetta” and that the report was “misleading,” we are one with him in presenting some facts and figures that might help in assessing the propriety of the Acef (Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund) disbursements from prior years’ loan approvals.

A bit of history: From the already high and questionable P83 million (70 percent of total loans) in 2005, the default rate alarmingly quadrupled to P311 million (91 percent of total loans) in 2007, and six times more to P1.7 billion (97 percent of total loans) in 2009 (sources: COA audit reports). A year prior Acef’s original expiry in December 2007, then Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., chair of the Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture, in the presence of Department of Agriculture senior officials, minced no words in expressing disgust at Acef’s performance, demanding more detailed and meaningful reports on collection efficiency, and on the future direction of agriculture sectors deserving of the fund.

We are therefore flabbergasted that after Acef’s extension to 2015, in barely a year, the number of borrowers of Acef—already saddled with overdue interests and collateral-free loans back when Congress approved its extension by eight years—skyrocketed to some 130 accounts from 80. DA officials now place Acef arrears at P3 billion “from 110 accounts,” practically all borrowers!

How will Acef’s P10 billion, which by law must revert to the national treasury upon expiry in 2015, be recovered if in 2010 Acef has indeed dried up? Were borrowers allowed to draw billions from Acef and the conduit Landbank, in accordance with preconditions basic to loan agreements, if any? And under what justification were delinquent accounts restructured? Were the projects monitored at all? Were the assets fully depreciated, while loans remain past due? Is the government now holding empty bags?

If reports that the P10-billion fund “was used as a cash cow of agriculture officials, politicians, and businessmen” are credible, will lawmakers conduct an investigation to determine accountability regardless of political affiliation? This remains to be proven, and the public deserves prompt answers, not motherhood statements.

—MANUEL Q. BONDAD,

manuelbondad@yahoo.com