COA: Office for Transportation Security overspent by P101 million

The Office for Transportation Security (OTS) has released P101.3 million worth of disbursements beyond its budget for 2018, the Commission on Audit (COA) said.

Based on COA’s annual audit report, the disbursement accounted for payments for personnel services and maintenance and operating expenses which are not covered by their appropriation under the 2018 budget, which violated the budget law, the Philippine Constitution, among other laws.

OTS, in a written comment submitted to COA last May, justified its action by citing that the agency spent for the salaries of 938 Job Order (JO) personnel stationed nationwide and maintenance of security screening equipment in airports all over the country in compliance with the civil aviation safeguard requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) audit.

“According to Management, since the OTS is in charge of the Security Screening Equipment and the Security Screening personnel to man the said equipment and considering that the previous number of Security Screening Officers (SSOs) deployed at the terminals is not compliant with the National Civil Aviation Security Program and Annex 17 to the Chicago Convention, Management deemed it inevitable to hire additional number of SSOs,” COA said.

In the same COA report, OTS said that it has repeatedly proposed a budget enough to  cover the operational requirements of vacant plantilla positions to be hired within the fiscal year but the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) only provides budgetary support based on filled positions as of end of year prior to budget preparation “which are no longer realistic, and where newly-hired/promoted personnel are not considered, hence the incurrence of excessive obligations.”

In addition, OTS told state auditors that they were not remiss in their responsibility to request for additional funds for the salaries and wages of SSOs, has provided DBM all the necessary documents for its approval, and aware of the impending overdraft, made constant follow-ups with DBM counterpart on the release of the Special Allotment Release Order.

“Relying on the assurance from the latter that their requests are being processed, they opted to disburse the salaries of SSOs and other operational requirements pending the release of approval, only to be notified on the last working day of the year that the requests  were disapproved,”  state auditors said.

These transactions include:

• request for P22 million and P59.2 million budget for repair and maintenance of Security Screening Equipment and salaries of Job Order employees, respectively which was disapproved by the DBM on December 28, 2018;
• request for P3 million budget for salaries and wages of technical assistants and other operational requirements under MOOE which was approved by DBM on December 28, 2018 but was erroneously released by DBM for Personnel Services budget;
• P6.8 million for additional salaries of OTS which was approved on December 28, 2018; and,
• P24,550  allocation for terminal  leave  benefits for resigned employee which was approved but erroneously released by DBM. —LDF, GMA News