PDEA flagged over P31.6 million transactions

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) for P31.66 million worth of questionable financial transactions last year.

“One hundred DVs (disbursement vouchers) were found to be not supported with official receipts (ORs) as required by existing laws, thus casting doubt on the validity of the claims,” the COA said in its 2019 annual audit report on the PDEA.

State auditors said the transactions, which were the subject of the DVs, were supposedly made from October to Dec. 31, 2019.

The COA said that while the DVs were submitted for auditing, government auditors could not ascertain the validity of the supposed payments as there was no proof that the payees received the amounts.

The audit body cited Section 4 of Presidential Decree 1445 or the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines, which states that “claims against government funds must be supported with complete documentation.”

Records showed that most of the PDEA’s transactions were made with various gasoline stations, information and communications technology providers, a telephone company, a courier service company, trade and marketing firms as well as industrial and general merchandise suppliers.

There were also supposed payments for water supply, catering, security  as well as janitorial, laboratory and printing services.

The PDEA was advised to order its cashier division to always demand an OR for every payment made and to refrain from processing succeeding claims “without complete documents.”

In its reply incorporated in the audit report, the PDEA said its financial management service “has been exerting its best effort to secure the ORs from the payees.”