Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Nalzaro: Incompetent COA By Bobby Nalzaro Saksi
THE Commission on Audit (COA) has been releasing reports of its audit on government agencies and local government units that included discrepancies and questionable expenditures. The common violation of appointed and elected officials is the failure to liquidate cash advances.
COA, for example, reported that Capitol has P13.15 million in unliquidated cash advances as of December last year. More that 50 percent of the money were spent before 2006 and, unfortunately, some of the responsible officials are no longer connected with the Province.
A COA circular provides that cash advances should be liquidated within five days from the 15th or the end of the month. Cash advances for travel abroad must be liquidated within 60 days after the official returns. For domestic travel, that is 30 days. The same circular orders that no additional cash advances should be released to the same official until the previous one is settled.
The circular, though, is often violated and COA has not done anything against the violators. Mind you, some of those who failed to liquidate their cash advances have retired while the others are already dead. This only shows that COA is inutile in protecting people's money.
Another violation is overspending. Auditors, for example, found that Ronda spent P600,000 for food served during meetings, group evaluation, cocktails and conferences. The expenses were unnecessary and the supporting documents did not indicate the dates and programs of the activities.
Borbon spent P375,000 for activities considered not for public purpose. COA also ordered Borbon employees and officials to refund P1.74 million worth of collective negotiation agreement incentives they received last year after it was found that the release of the funds was irregular.
COA also discovered that Capitol has committed an irregularity in disbursing some P7.9 million as advance payment for suppliers of goods used for the Cebu International Convention Center. But do state auditors have the guts to file appropriate charges against those responsible? Does COA have the balls to recover these amounts from those responsible in releasing them?
If these officials cannot refund, will COA prosecute them and send them to jail?
I doubt. Corruption flourishes in this country because we have government agencies like the COA, supposedly the watchdog of government funds, being remiss in its task of running after those who are stealing taxpayers' money.
