What happened to the COA findings?

We are appalled by the recently released Commission on Audit (COA) 2023 report on the Department of Education’s (DepEd) projects worth P1.064 billion down the drain. The implementation of the DepEd Enterprise Resource Planning System interrelated projects, some dated 2019, meant to connect and automate the data systems in the department were found inefficient and ineffective.

It is “tantamount to the wastage of government funds,” according to the COA. Despite failing to deliver on key milestones of the project, payments were made to the contractor, and worse, there was obvious undercapitalization of the contractor to cover any financial accountability. Moreover, it had records of failing to deliver projects in the past.

As in similar COA audit findings on inefficiency in government procurement systems and their related recommendations to rectify them, we raise the practical question: Where did all such COA findings and recommendations in the past end up? After-the-fact audit reports have already raised irascible reactions and frustrated expectations among many of us as well as the utter helplessness to bail out this country from the gross inefficiency seen in financial governance, happening year after year. Some COA audit reports ended up being forgotten in the dustbin.

It is imperative now to intervene in the government financial system and create an independent Internal Audit Office (IAO) apart from the COA but charged with oversight over financial transactions in the three branches of government to thwart fraudulent transactions and inefficiencies before they happen and walk through the whole control process.

We cannot expect self-regulation in graft-ridden government offices to close the valve on huge unabated waste of public funds. The cost of creating an IAO is justified by the estimated 20 percent of the national budget lost to corruption.

MARVEL K. TAN, CPA.

[email protected]