COA reiterates probing corruption not part of its mandate

Investigating possible graft in government agencies is not part of the Commission on Audit’s (COA) mandate, its chairperson explained on Friday.

COA chairman Michael Aguinaldo made the statement during the continuation of Senate blue ribbon hearing on the alleged irregular procurement of pandemic supplies.

It was Senator Bong Go who asked the process of flagging anomalies or corruption in the audit reports.

“Sa process po, Mr. Chairman Aguinaldo, paano natin malalaman kung may anomalya o korapsyon?” he asked.

(In your usual process, Mr. Chairman Aguinaldo, how will we know if there is an anomaly or corruption?)

In response, Aguinaldo said state auditors will specify in the annual audit report if they noticed any irregularity.

“Kung may makita sila, ilalabas po ‘yan…Siguro maganda sigurong banggitin na ang mandato po ng Commission on Audit ay hindi naman to probe corruption. Ang mandato po namin is primarily to examine, audit, and settle accounts,” he added.

(If they noticed something, then we will report it…. Maybe it is good to mention that the mandate of the Commission on Audit is not to probe corruption. Our mandate is primarily to examine, audit, and settle accounts.)

“Kung may makita po kaming corruption, ire-refer po namin ‘yan sa proper body. Normally po, sa Ombudsman namin nire-refer ‘yun, kung may makita ‘yung mga auditor namin na indication of fraud or corruption, ire-refer po ‘yan,” he added.

(If they flag corruption in the transactions, we will refer it to the proper body. Normally, we refer it to the Ombudsman if our auditors find an indication of fraud or corruption.)

The Senate blue ribbon committee is now focusing its investigation on the transfer of Department of Health’s P42 billion COVID-19 response fund to the Department of Budget and Management Procurement Service (DBM-PS) without a memorandum of agreement.

This is one of the major deficiencies that was flagged by the audit body in DOH’s use of its COVID-19 funds.

“These deficiencies contributed to the challenges encountered and missed opportunities by the DOH during the time of state of calamity/national emergency, and casted doubts on the regularity of related transactions,” COA said in its 2020 annual audit report.—LDF, GMA News