Ballesteros, M. M. C. (2014). The farmers enterprise development project of the Ministry of Rural Development in the Republic of Furgikistan: A management case (Unpublished master's thesis). Public Management Development Program, Development Academy of the Philippines.

Public Management Development Management Senior Executives Class Batch 3 Thesis (SEC)--Development Academy of the Philippines.

This management case is about the Agrarian Reform Community Connectivity and Economic Support Services (ARCCESS) Project of the Department of Agrarian Reform disguised in the name of Farmers' Enterprise Development Project of the Ministry of Rural Development in the Republic of Furgikistan. The project, conceived in 2010, is a support service delivery mechanism of the DAR to contribute to the overall goal of rural poverty reduction. For the first time after so many years, DAR got an unusually huge local fund allocation for a non-infrastructure type of project hat will directly provide support to agrarian reform beneficiaries' organizations (ARBOs) and capacitate them in establishing and managing agricultural enterprises through distribution of farm machineries and post-harvest equipment as common service facilities (CSF) coupled with market-based agri-extension services (AES) and businss development services (DBS). It was a good development opportunity that such fund allocation from the General Appropriations Act came at the time when approvals of fresh foreign assisted project were waning. The project concept and design directly addresses the long-standing constraints faced by farmers in improving productivity and raising incomes from awarded lands - a critical issue in sustaining the gains of land reform in the Philippines. With the transformation of land tenure and ownership structure in the Philippines resulting from the progress of land re-distribution over the years, the project is a strategic intervention in addressing the present development gap in the agriculture sector which is building social cohesion among small-holder farmers to improve overall productivity and competitiveness of the sector. However, since its inception in 2011, the implementation of ARCCESS especially the much awaited roll out of CSFs was delayed for more than two years. This adversely affected the financial performance of the Department at the time when the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was implementing major governance reforms under the Aquino Administration such as the one -year budget validity, zero-based budgeting policy as part of the public expenditure reforms and the performance-based incentive scheme under the results-based performance management system. Around 3.1 billion unobligated allotment was cited for one of DAR's "major final outputs" - Program Beneficiary Development - in the Development Budget Coordinating Committee's (DBCC) Midterm 2013 Report. (www.dbm.gov.ph) Overall, the project includes three batches of sub-project proposals that emanated from the provincial offices of DAR, developed in consultation with the ARBOs, that were approved consecutively by the central office in years 2011, 2012, and 2013. To date, a total of 648 sub-projects comprise ARCCESS which is expected to benefit 356,686 farmers from 13 regions all over the country. The project is expected to deliver 6,327 units of common service facilities/equipment and professional services on AES and BDS to assist 1,664 farmers' organization. (DAR-SSO, 2014). The procurement of hard and soft components of ARCCESS from the original 2011 budget allocation finally took off only 2012. The first partial delivery of targeted CSFs was received by the target beneficiaries in February 2013. As of October 2014, the DAR Central Office Bid and Awards Committee procured 1,607 units or 25% of the total target CSFs. (DAR - SSO, 2014) Several adjustments in the procurement process were made along the way in attempts of the management to resolve the implementation bottlenecks. In 2012, the procurement of CSF was transferred from the DAR Central Office to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM). To date, there is an on-going procurement of 306 units (or 5%) while 1,838 units have been recommended for procurement with PS-DBM and has progressed slowly. The procurement of the soft components has been delegated from the central office to the regional office. It has moved relatively faster than taht for the CSF. Contracts were awarded to professional service providers for the first batch of 233 sub-projects with the implementation of the first phase of AES generally completed, the BDS and the Progress and Process Monitoring (PPM) are ongoing. In view of three-year delay and the slow fund utilization, the ARCCESS did not obtain additional budget for the Fiscal Year 2015. A budget structure with a minimal amount of Php 1 million for ARCCESS is retained in the 2015 budget to allow for possible request for additional funding should the project's progress improves. The lessons that can be drawn from the ARCCESS' implementation in the past three years provide an opportunity for improvement in the implementation of the project and other similar projects in the future, hence, this management case.