COA disallows transfer of PCG officials' mobile credits to private people

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Audit (COA) has disallowed the transfer of mobile phone credits (more popularly known as “pasaload”) of Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) officials to private individuals.

Some PCG officers were found to be giving away mobile phone credits to private individuals in considerably large amounts and are making the government pay for it.

The COA said the PCG has failed to monitor the use of postpaid mobile phones “resulting in unnecessary and irregular expenses and abuse of its usage.”

“Further scrutiny of the bills revealed that some of the lines were being utilized to share loads with other mobile numbers not the property of the PCG and presumably privately owned,” its 2009 report said.

COA bared how at least two mobile numbers (0917-5355808 and 0917-7243682) have been giving away phone credits in amounts ranging from P5 to P1,450 in just one transaction.

The pasaloads also include credit transfer of P400, P500, P900, and P1,100, bringing the total number of pasaloads made by the two numbers alone to P7,055 from Sept. 27, 2008 to Oct. 27, 2009.

The COA report said mobile phone no. 0917-7243682 had a monthly usage ranging from P13,000 to P34,000, which is much more than the fixed monthly subscription rate.

Apart from pasaloads, the COA report said the PCG incurred a total of P2,444,196.11 for mobile telephone expenses, P692,009.03 of which was for the subscription of seven postpaid lines, in 2009.

“It can be gleaned that some of the bills paid pertained to 2008. It is also evident that some of the current charges are the fixed monthly subscription rates for mobile numbers 0917-7245402, 0917-8632542, 0917-6292528 and 0917-6294177, giving the impression that the user may no longer be using the phone or the usage is below the minimum fixed monthly subscription rate,” the audit report said.

“Hence, if the foregoing numbers are no longer in use, then the agency is wasting its resources paying for services no longer being availed of,” it stressed.

COA also noted that some of the overdue charges were not paid while in some billings, the overdue charges were paid together with the current charges.

After the issuance of the audit observation memorandum, the PCG management coordinated with service provider Globe for the termination of the identified postpaid lines and pasaload services.

It, however, decided to maintain account numbers 41395192 and 34054555 as the two are being used by the Public Information Office and the Coast Guard Action Center.

COA said it recommends strict monitoring of the use of all postpaid mobile phones at the PCG and require the concerned official or employee to pay the excess bills which are above the monthly subscription plan.

It also recommended a shift to prepaid services and requiring all personnel responsible for using the sharing load services to refund the actual amounts they used to pasaload.