Sen. Ralph Recto. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Audit’s (COA) proposed budget for 2014 includes a P2.2-billion allocation that it can use to hire more auditors or what Sen. Ralph Recto likes to call “tripwires against corruption.”
The Senate President Pro Tempore said COA can use the amount to recruit 6,485 more personnel, “some of whom could be frontline auditors to beef up its present workforce of 8,734.”
Recto said COA has a fill-up rate of about 60 percent with only 8,734 positions currently filled out of COA’s plantilla of 15,219 authorized positions.
Recto said a special provision in the proposed budget of the agency for 2014 provides that portions of the P2.2 billion earmarked for the salaries of the 6,485 unfilled positions would only be released by the Department of Budget and Management once COA undertakes hiring.
Hiring fund
The COA has a proposed budget of P8.4 billion for 2014.
“In short, it is some sort of a hiring fund the COA can withdraw from to pay for the salaries of new employees,” Recto said.
COA reported in its budget submission to the Senate that “19,081 agencies are subject to its financial, compliance and other audits.”
Recto said that “even if COA achieves full staff complement, that would still be below the 1:1 personnel to office ratio.”
“In addition, COA stores 39 million spending vouchers, which its auditors are supposed to examine,” Recto said.
“If the Ombudsman’s staff is being strengthened, if ‘integrity bodies’ in revenue agencies are being given additional funds, if internal affairs units in the police and the military are being beefed up, then all the more that COA, the public’s whistle-blower, must have more personnel,” Recto said.