COA questions PTV’s P77.3-M payment for workers in 2017

The Commission on Audit has questioned legality and accuracy of P77.302 million in payments made in 2017 by the state-run People’s Television (PTV) for the salaries and benefits of contractual and contract of service personnel.

In its 2017 annual audit report, COA said the People’s Television Network, Inc. (PTNI) failed to support the payments with the proper documentation.

This meant “the legality, validity, and accuracy of payments… could not be established since these were not documented as required” by Section 4 of Presidential Decree No. 1445.

Documents required by Paragraph 3, Section 4.1.3 of COA Circular No. 2012-001 include a copy of the service contract, a certification that the services cannot be provided by regular personnel, an accomplishment report, and approved daily time records.

When auditors verbally requested the contracts for 2017, PTNI management said it could not commit to the submission but promised to submit the copies of contracts for the year 2016 instead.

The last contracts submitted to COA pertained to contracts for the year 2015, according to the report.

The report warned that the nonsubmission of the required documents would result in the issuance of notices of suspension, which would suspend the payments, or even notices of disallowance, requiring the liable personnel to return the irregular expense to the government.

Besides this issue, COA also flagged PTNI’s failure to remit to the government P210.833 million in taxes withheld from its employees’ wages prior to 2017.

PTNI informed auditors it would enter into a compromise agreement with the Bureau of Internal Revenue to avoid the imposition of surcharges and interest.

Likewise, COA pointed to the nonremittance of P56.036 million, P6.547 million and P19,452 in employee contributions to the Government Service Insurance System, Philippine Health Insurance Corp., and the Home Development Mutual Fund (also known as Pag-IBIG), also before the year 2017.

The low-rated state television recently became the subject of controversy after COA issued its annual audit report flagging the Department of Tourism’s P60-million advertising placements on the weekday afternoon show “Kilos Pronto.”

The PTV show is produced by Bitag Media Unlimited Inc., produced by Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo’s brother Ben Tulfo and cohosted by another brother, Erwin Tulfo. /atm