The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has received an unqualified opinion from the Commission on Audit (COA) for the fiscal year 2021, the third successive year it earned the highest audit rating.

In an interview at the MMDA headquarters in Makati City, MMDA chair Romando Artes said the feat was due to reforms in the MMDA’s 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,” Artes said.

The MMDA received the same rating in 2019 and 2020 while he was serving as the MMDA’s assistant general manager for finance and administration.

As a result of MMDA’s good financial management, he said MMDA personnel have received increased benefits such as minimum wage for job order personnel and upgrading 570 job order positions to casual positions.

In an independent auditor’s report included in a letter from COA Cluster 7 Director Lucila Isidro on Tuesday, it said the MMDA’s financial statements as of December 31, 2021 presented its financial position “fairly.”

“[The MMDA’s] financial performance, changes in net assets/equity, cash flows, and the comparison of budget and actual amounts for the year then ended in accordance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards,” the report read.

The audit evidence obtained by the independent auditor was “sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion”, it added.

To date, the MMDA has recently upgraded its facilities such as the construction of the new MMDA head office building in Pasig City in May, in addition to the construction and rehabilitation of flood control infrastructure, traffic management reforms, and disaster preparedness. (PNA)