A Commission on Audit (COA) official on Saturday posed a question to President Rodrigo Duterte about when is the right time to audit pandemic funds.
Duterte earlier appealed to COA to give government agencies “elbow room” to comply with its recommendations, after the commission revealed its findings on the Department of Health’s utilization of COVID-19 funds.
“It is not easy really to comply. We know that we should comply, there is no problem about it. But can we have just enough elbow room? Do not adopt the standards of the pre-pandemic days. We have a problem here,” Duterte had said.
In response, COA Public Information Office Director Jonathan Beltran told GMA News Online over the weekend: “The thing to ask is when shall we conduct the audit of pandemic funds?”
On Duterte’s threat to audit COA himself if he wins vice president next year, Beltran said the constitutional body already audits itself. “It is COA that audits COA.”
Though it audits itself, Beltran assured the public that the “audit teams who audit COA has been independent and performs/ed their tasks well even if their audit client is COA.”
He added that it is the COA chairperson who is the appointing authority, even as he urged the public to check out the COA’s Annual Audit Reports on its official website. -with Julia Ornedo/MDM, GMA News
0 Comments