COA finds P5B in unliquidated funds

COA chair Maria Gracia Pulido Tan. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The government’s chief auditor has vowed to file malversation charges against some 100 government officials over the nonliquidation of over P5 billion in state funds that were transferred to nongovernment organizations (NGOs).

“You can’t get away with this forever,” Commission on Audit (COA) Chair Grace Pulido-Tan said on Monday, addressing those involved.

The P5 billion was on top of the P6.2 billion in pork barrel funds funneled to 82 NGOs, including at least eight with ties to alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, Tan said.

Tan told the Senate finance committee that unliquidated fund transfers from government agencies, corporations and local units made to NGOs and civil society groups ran to over P5 billion as of 2011.

She said the COA began issuing notices in 2012 to the 100 officials involved to no avail.

Sen. Francis Escudero, finance committee chair, said Congress had put in a provision in the 2014 national budget specifying that no funds would be released to an NGO unless earlier releases had been liquidated.

The committee looked into the regulation and use of NGOs and foundations in questionable government transactions.

But after the hearing, Tan said that some P1.6 billion had been liquidated and P4 billion remained unliquidated.

“In law there is a presumption that if you are entrusted with money, you are accountable for some money and then you don’t liquidate or account for it within the period,” she told reporters.

“And when you’re asked about it, you still fail to liquidate, there is a presumption that the money was malversed,” she said.

Tan said malversation charges would be filed against the erring officials.

And since it would be a “nightmare” to run after all the officials, she agreed with Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales that the latter should investigate officials with unliquidated amounts of P1 million and above.

Those with unliquidated amounts of under P1 million would be investigated by the Civil Service Commission, she said.

Tan acknowledged it would be hard to trace all the government officials involved, particularly those who had retired, gone abroad or died.

“A lot of them, while we have the records, we have their names, we have their addresses, we doubt if we will be able to trace everyone,” she said.

During the hearing, Tan said no government agency, except the Department of Social Welfare and Development and local government units, was authorized by law to transfer funds to NGOs.

“The TLRC (Technology and Livelihood Resource Center), Nabcor (National Agri-business Corp.), ZREC (Zamboanga del Norte Rubber Estate Corp.) and other implementing agencies have no power from law that would authorize them to download or transfer funds to NGOs,” she said.

Originally posted: 5:23 pm | Monday, March 17th, 2014

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