December 4, 2024 | 4:20pm
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) flagged the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) for several pieces of equipment that were unaccounted for; however, the OCD maintained that it has already properly accounted for many of these items.
In a report released in December, the COA noted several accounting errors and omissions for 2023.
Several semi-expendable properties were reported missing during the COA’s physical inventory.
For example, in the OCD Regional Office (RO) 2, the COA found that there were missing laptops amounting to P207,000.
The OCD was also flagged for the non-recording of accrued expenses.
“The audit noted that various expenses in (NCR) National Capital Region totaling P141,113.20 were not recognized in the books of accounts at year-end, thereby resulting in the understatement of Accounts Payable and related expenses accounts by the same amount,” the COA report read.
Some of the expenses include the salaries of several job orders and contracts of service personnel, electric bills, communication expenses and more.
The OCD also had unrecorded deliveries amounting to P12.57 million. These items were already delivered, accepted and issued to end-users but they were unrecorded in the OCD’s accounts.
Some of these items include shelter repair kits, Christmas bags, plaques and markers for awards and more.
On March 8, 2024, COA also found around 35 sacks of bonnets and hand gloves that were supposed to be donated to the victims of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey in February 2023.
“Several items were not included in the cargo shipped to Turkey and remained in the custody of CO (central office). These inventories were not included in the year-end inventory report nor recorded in the books of accounts,” the COA report read.
The OCD, which has the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council attached to it, also failed to exhaust its disaster funds.
“Various projects intended for DRRM programs totaling P12.79 million remained unimplemented as of year-end, which deprived the intended users of the much-needed benefits that could have been derived from the projects,” COA said.
COA also flagged the OCD RO 10 for deficiencies in fund disbursements, including the P10 million spent on renting office space and a warehouse since 2017.
RO 10 was supposed to have its own building, but the COA team found that it remained unfinished.
COA also reported the OCD had P151.84 million worth of misstatements as a result of several lapses in accounting.
According to COA, a misstatement is the difference between the amount, classification, presentation, or disclosure of a reported financial statement item compared to what is required, adding that a “misstatement can arise from error or fraud.”
The OCD also failed to meet 21 out of 33 recommendations by COA from 2022.
In 2022, COA recommended that the OCD’s Chief of Accounting should correct the entries of misstatements, which then totaled P370 million. While several adjustments have been made, these corrections only amounted to P268.12 million.
OCD maintains tight ship
The OCD, however, said that the equipment flagged by the COA had already been accounted for after the commission brought it to their attention.
“There are no more missing items. OCD conducted a ‘one time cleansing’ to update the books,” OCD Administrator Ariel Nepomuceno told Philstar.com.
This cleansing took place in December 2023.
OCD Assistant Secretary Raffy Alejandro also assured Philstar.com that all expenses had already been accounted for, explaining that the lengthy process from item procurement to auditing contributed to the delay.
“Usually, ‘yung processing ng payment, kunyari na-deliver ngayon, ‘yung processing ng payment kasi, takes a few months then saka pa lang mag-umpisa ang recording process. So may lag time talaga ‘yan,” Alejandro said.
(Usually, the processing of payment, for example it is delivered today, the processing of payment, it takes a few months and then you can begin the recording process. So there is a lag time.)
By the time the auditing process begins, the acquisition of the proper receipts is still ongoing, Alejandro said.
The OCD also pointed out that the donations bound for Turkey were not put to waste. Nepomuceno explained that the donations in question were part of a second batch. While the first batch was delivered successfully, by the time that blankets for the second batch arrived, Turkey said it was no longer accepting these donations. He said that these blankets were then distributed to victims of heavy rains in Mindanao instead.
The P12.79 million flagged by COA was also transferred to the Department of Public Works and Highways in order to build COVID-19 containment facilities during the pandemic in 2021, but the latter agency has yet to liquidate this, Nepomuceno explained. This was still included in the 2023 COA report since their accounting is continuous.
The RO 10’s building should also be done by March 2025, said Alejandro, which would address the COA’s concern about the P10 million spent for renting.
Many of these adjustments will likely be reflected in the 2024 COA report, according to Alejandro.
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