COA flags PTV’s payment of P189.78M in salaries sans proper documentation

State auditors have flagged the People’s Television Network (PTV) over its payments to personnel totaling P189.78 million that were not supported by the proper documentation.

In its 2020 audit report, the Commission on Audit (COA) said PTV released salaries totaling P52.58 million to regular employees, P1.55 million to contractual employees, and P135.65 million to contract of service (COS) personnel last year.

“However, the legality, validity, and accuracy of the payments... could not be verified due to non-submission of properly filled-up and duly signed/approved Daily Time Records (DTRs),” it said.

COA said the DTRs of COS personnel for January to June 2020 were submitted to the Audit Team in December last year but later returned due to lack of signatures of the concerned personnel and non-approval of their respective superiors.

“The Audit Team would like to point out that this practice of submitting incomplete supporting documents specifically the DTRs for the payments of salaries of permanent, contractual, and COS personnel has been observed for several years now,” it added.

State auditors reiterated their previous year’s recommendation for PTV to require its Administrative Division to submit DTRs that are properly filled out, “otherwise, the payments will be suspended in audit.”

COA said PTV committed to submit properly filled out DTRs and vowed not to be flagged by state auditors over the same issue again.

In its rejoinder, COA told PTV to immediately submit the DTRs for the payments of salaries in 2018, 2019, and 2020 to avoid the issuance of a Notice of Suspension.—AOL, GMA News