COA to seek citizens' participation in audit of aid distribution

The Commission on Audit (COA) on Monday said it will be seeking the participation of citizens in the special audit of the use of public funds and foreign aid for Yolanda victims.

 

"The Commission on Audit is intending to launch the citizens’ participatory audit in the disaster audit," COA Commissioner Heidi Mendoza, who was tasked to head the special audit, said during a briefing at the Palace.

 

COA created the audit team after Budget Sec. Butch Abad assured the public that all aid intended for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda will be audited and accounted for.

 

On Monday, Mendoza said they have already identified the different "choke points" in the aid delivery system which will be "vulnerable" so that they can design monitoring mechanisms where citizens could participate. 

 

She said they will work with the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Government Association of Certified Public Accountants, and the Junior Philippine Institute of Accountants.

 

"We’ll make sure that every donation will be accounted for...in the books of accounts of government agencies [and] we’ll make sure there will be no diversion of aids and that [these] are distributed to the targeted beneficiaries," she said.

 

Aside from this, she said they can also look at the government's procurement and aid and delivery system. 

  

"We will concentrate on the accounting or the tracking of the inflow and the monitoring of the outflow," she said. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ, GMA News