COA flags DOJ under Aguirre for P65.69-M in 3 unauthorized bank accounts

The Department of Justice (DOJ) under the leadership of former Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II had nearly P65.69 million in public funds maintained in three ATM bank accounts at Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) without authorization, according to the 2017 audit report of the Commission on Audit (COA).

State auditors said it is irregular for the DOJ to keep funds at LBP when Section 2 of Executive Order No. 338 and Section 4 of the General Appropriations Act of 2017 mandates that all revenues from government agencies must be deposited to the National Treasury (NT).

The COA said these bank deposits account for the DOJ's Inter-agency Transfer Funds (IATF) and grants and donations, Victims Compensation Fund (VCF), and for the Witness Protection Program (WPP).

The bulk of the unauthorized bank accounts came from the VCF with an estimated amount of P52.58 million. The COA said this amount is already less than half the original balance of P143 million.

The COA said the DOJ, under then-Secretary and now detained Senator Leila de Lima, started transferring funds from its LBP account to the NT in 2015 with an initial deposit of P72 million followed by transfers of P40 million and P30 million in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

The IATF account had a total amount of P12.72 million, more than P8 million is for the DOJ Trust Fund for the AMAN Future Pyramid Scam.

"These are trust receipts of the Department which should have been deposited with the National Treasury. They are not authorized to be deposited with the AGDB (Authorized Government Depository Bank) due to absence of authority," COA said.

An AGDB is a government bank authorized by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to maintain deposits and cash balances of national government agencies, local government units, government-owned or controlled corporations, and state universities and colleges.

Meanwhile, COA said the P379,706.63 balance in the WPP account represents the P1.32 million grant the DOJ received from Australia. It, however, still has no authority to be maintained in an LBP account.

"We recommended that Management transfer or deposit in full to the National Treasury the amount of P65,685,647.45 representing bank account balances not authorized to be deposited with AGDB," COA said.

In its comment, the DOJ said it has started the remittance of IATF to the Treasury except for the Presidential Support Fund for Typhoon which is "still being used to pay for the claims of employees who requested for reconsideration to increase their claim."

The agency added it wants to maintain the VCF account, which COA said still counters the provision of EO 338. The COA, however, said the DOJ can instead request for a Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA) from the Department of Budget and Management.

'Parking money'

Meanwhile, COA flagged the DOJ for "parking money" in the ATM payroll accounts of the agency amounting to P93.6 million as of December 31, 2017.

The COA said the DOJ told them during the exit conference that the funds were kept at an ATM account "for unused NCA to avoid lapsing."

An NCA lapses either monthly or quarterly, according to the Department of Budget and Management's National Budget Circular dated January 3, 2017.

The COA said this is "unusually huge" since a the ATM payroll account of employees should be zero, or at least contain the maintaining balance of P10,000.

"We recommended that the Finance Service stop the practice of transferring funds to the ATM Payroll account for transactions without valid expenditures and to return to the (Bureau of Treasury) any deposit without valid obligations," the audit report said.

The DOJ had told COA that some of the funds were "already taken up in the books of accounts," but state auditors said the agency "did not give any details on their comments regarding the transactions already taken up in the books." —JST, GMA News