COA bares Tudela's undocumented purchases

CEBU - The Commission on Audit disclosed that the municipality of Tudela failed to submit complete documents in the purchase of materials amounting to P826, 554.12 while inventory accounts of more than P1.5 million were not supported with Report on Physical Count of Inventories.

State auditors noted that several required bid documents, including class A and class B documents, were not submitted by the local officials to justify the purchases.

Class A documents include the legal, technical and financial documents while Class B documents include bid security, minutes in the opening of bids, minutes in the post qualification process, notice of award, duly approved contract and performance security.

Further, the COA also found out that some supporting documents were found to be deficient, thus raising questions on the legality of the transactions.

COA found out that ABC’s Program of Work and Purchase Request was not signed by the head of procuring entity and was only stamped as “originally signed,” while the disbursement voucher, acceptance and inspection report and the charge invoices had no date.

Also, the journal entry voucher was not signed by the municipal accountant and the disbursement voucher of P313, 175.70 which was paid to a certain construction supply was also undated and unnumbered.

This, according to COA, violated Section 6 of Republic Act 9184 or the Standardization of Procurement Process and Forms.

The municipal accountant, on the other hand, justified that she did not sign the journal entry voucher at that time because the documents attached to the disbursement vouchers were incomplete.

Because of this, COA ordered the municipal accountant to submit original copies of the bid documents as indicated and provide support for all future transactions with the required documents.

Meanwhile, state auditors said the town’s inventory account worth P1, 566, 071.45 were not supported with a report on physical count of inventories which violates section 124 or the Inventory of Supplies or property.

COA recommended that a report on the physical count of inventories should be submitted every semester pursuant to section 124 volume 1 of the New Government Accounting System Manual. — By Joy Kareen T. Saliente/WAB (THE FREEMAN)