BI misreads Duterte’s veto message, loses P869M in revenues —COA

The government lost around P869 million due to a misinterpretation by the Bureau of Immigration on the collection of express lane fees from foreigners, the Commission on Audit said in its annual audit report.

The COA said the BI may have taken part of President Rodrigo Duterte's veto message in the General Appropriations Act of 2017 to mean that it had to stop charging the express lane fee of P500 from foreigners.

The BI stopped its collection of express lane charges in June 2017 in compliance with the veto message.

However, the COA said the message only prohibited the allotment of the collections for the payment of salaries of casual and contractual personnel.

“The team believes that it is only the use of express lane charges collected that was vetoed by the President and not the collection from express lane charges inasmuch as the veto message also provides that, ‘the collected fees from the express lane charges should now be deposited as income of the General Fund’,” COA said.

Express lane fees are charged from foreigners for the expeditious release of documents for their applications for registration, extension of stay, conversion of status, and legalization.

"The termination of the said collections resulted  in the loss of income on the part of the government that could have been utilized for the improvement of the economy," COA said.

The COA said this shortfall on the BI resulted in the decrease of collections in 2017 that only reached more than P568.5 million, a far cry from the P1.437 billion the BI incurred in 2016.

The COA directed the BI to explain its non-compliance with Duterte's veto message on the express lane charges and its failure to remit the the collections as income of the general fund.

The BI, in response, said the veto message is under appeal. —NB, GMA News