PDEA’s P74M for travel flagged

The Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged the local travel expenses of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) amounting to P74.283 million, due to incomplete supporting documents.

Based on its 2018 audit report, the COA said P51.83 million of the travel expenses had no official receipts, while another P22.45 million worth of liquidation reports had “insufficient supporting documents.”

“This is not in accordance with existing laws, rules and regulations, and cast doubts on the validity, existence, occurrence and regularity of the claims,” the COA report said.

Local travels

According to the annual audit report, the P74 million was but a fraction of the P110.8 million spent by the PDEA for local travels as of end-2018. Due to their incomplete documentation, the COA said it could not be positive that the travels were necessary at all.

Citing Section 4 of the Government Auditing Code, the audit body reminded the PDEA that government agencies are required to attach complete documents in disbursement vouchers and liquidation reports prior to making reimbursement claims.

Itinerary

Supporting documents include a duly approved travel itinerary, transportation tickets, certificates of appearance and completed travel, and a certification from the agency head on the necessity of the trip.

In its recommendations, the audit body told the PDEA to direct its accountant to correct the incomplete submissions of required documents for the P22.45 million in travel expenses.

The PDEA cashier was asked to submit the official receipts of the P51.83 million in disbursements, and to stop issuing additional payouts until the previous issues had been rectified.

The PDEA committed itself to fulfilling the COA’s recommendations.