MMDA gets COA’s highest rating for FY 2021

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has again received the Commission on Audit’s (COA) highest rating for fiscal year 2021 — the third consecutive year that the agency got the recognition.

Considered as the best opinion the commission can bestow to an agency, the COA gave an “unqualified opinion" on the MMDA’s presentation of its financial statement.

 MMDA Chairman Attorney Romando Artes expressed gratitude over the acknowledgement, saying that the agency has initiated reforms on its budgetary process, expenditures, disbursement, and financial reporting.

“We have to sustain, if not improve, these established reforms to be able to serve Metro Manila better, especially since we are now reeling from the effects of the pandemic,” he added.

The same audit rating was given to the MMDA in 2019 and 2020 — the time when Artes was the Assistant General Manager for Finance and Administration.

The MMDA shared that due to its good financial management, agency personnel can now receive increased benefits such as minimum wage for job order personnel, among others. To note, the MMDA also upgraded 570 of its job order personnel to casual positions.

For his part, MMDA General Manager Undersecretary Frisco San Juan, Jr. said that the changes “have benefitted not just the agency, but also its employees and their morale, and the stakeholders, as well.”

To sustain the momentum in ensuring effective delivery of its services, the MMDA have likewise started upgrading its facilities, beginning with the construction of the MMDA new head office building in Pasig, which was inaugurated by President Rodrigo Duterte last month.

Further, the agency said that it will continue to push for more programs and policies in line to its mandates and functions that covers the construction and rehabilitation of flood control infrastructures, traffic management reforms, and disaster preparedness — which the current officials hope to be continued by the incoming administration.

Photos from Metropolitan Manila Development Authority

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