NYC denies ‘unnecessary’ spending

The National Youth Commission (NYC) denied any irregularities on its expenditures, despite a Commission on Audit (COA) annual report which indicated that the agency spent too much public funds on meetings and meals.

“It is very clear in the Commission on Audit Report that there are no irregularities in the utilization of NYC’s funds,” NYC Officer-in-Charge Ronald Cardema said in a press briefing.

In a previous report however, COA marked some of NYC’s expenses as “unnecessary”, after spending P300,000 in meals during 126 meetings, 112 of which were unofficial.

READ: Too much snacking in youth agency  

Cardema added that all of the issues regarding NYC’s expenditures were already addressed and discussed with COA in an exit conference.  COA recommended that NYC “exercise more care in the use of public funds” by disbursing resources only for authorized meetings and activities.

The NYC attached copies of the recent COA-issued Statements of Suspensions, Disallowances and Charges in its Facebook post.

Cardema called on media organizations to be “careful” in their reportage.

“We call on our colleagues in the media to be more careful and make the necessary verification first and ensure that what they report is true. Positive change cannot be achieved if some media entities will continue reporting without verifying information,” he said.