COA calls out Cavite gov't for 'unjustified' hiring of 24 consultants

The Commission on Audit (COA) has called out the Cavite provincial government for its "unjustified" hiring of 24 consultants in 2018 which incurred P4.9 million despite their lack of clear duties and functions.

In its annual audit report, the COA said the provincial government was unable to assess if in-house personnel were capable of performing the tasks due to the absence of defined scopes of work, terms of reference, time frames and expected outputs in the contracts of these consultants.

"Review of the Consultancy Service Contracts and related documents disclosed that the scope of works and expected outputs/deliverables of each consultant were not indicated therein or in any other related document," the COA said.

"Absence of such needed information in the Consultancy Contracts provided no means to assess whether the services rendered by the consultants were beyond in-house capability of the province to undertake such works, either due to lack of expertise of incumbent employees or time to undertake the nature of works needed."

A list provided in the COA report showed that the consultants earned a monthly honorarium between P15,000 to P30,000. Four of them were hired as early as 2010, one in 2013, nine since 2016, eight since 2017, and two last year.

Out of the 24 consultants, 10 served as "special assistant" to outgoing Governor Jesus Crispin Remulla, who won a congressional seat in the seventh district.

Consultant for Investor Relations Adriano Timoteo earned the most honorarium in 2018 worth P360,000, followed by special assistant Ruperto Sangalang at P330,000 and Consultant for Agriculture Modernization Edilberto Silan at P300,000.

The COA said their contracts violated the Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Government Procurement Reform Act, which states that consultants can only be hired if their expertise is beyond the capacity of the government.

It added that COA Memorandum No. 2005-027 requires a contract to cite the expected deliverables from each consultant.

The COA thus recommended for the Cavite government to direct the Human Resource Management Officer to furnish state auditors the copies of the contracts of the 24 consultants, with their corresponding duties and functions, to avoid the suspension or disallowance of further disbursements.

The chief administrative officer, in its reply, said it is now revising the consultancy contracts to conform with the COA recommendations. —KBK, GMA News