COA: Paje’s office spent over P22 M for food, catering services

MANILA, Philippines - State auditors have found that the office of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje spent more than P22.08 million for food and catering services for routine meetings last year in excess of its budget of P704,000.

The Commission on Audit (COA) said the excess of P21.38 million had consumed 12.71 percent of the DENR’s total Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) of P297.5 million for last year.

“The foregoing manifest unwise and uneconomical spending which resulted in over-expenditure for representation expense and is not in accord with Section 7.1 of RA No. 9184, which mandates that all procurement shall be within the approved budget of the procuring entity,” state auditors said.

“It likewise redounds to sacrificing funds for other operational needs of the DENR-OSEC.”

Inocencio Castillo, DENR Budget Division chief, said the P704,000 budget for food and catering services was for meetings and conferences involving only DENR officials.

“In that case, we have to have a budget even for othe participants who are not from the DENR,” he said.

“An example would be planning or meeting we called for the Anti-Illegal Logging program of the department. Apart from providing food and accommodation for the DENR officials or personnel, we are also shouldering those from the other agencies like the Armed Forces of the Philippines or the non-government organizations.” 

Castillo said expenses for food and refreshments for workshops or events involving officials and employees of other agencies would have to be taken from DENR’s MOOE. Such expenses are not included in the P704,000, he added.

The COA said the General Appropriations Act for 2012 provides a budget of P10.3 million for the representation expenses of DENR, with the office of the secretary allotted P704,000.

“Analysis disclosed that during the year, the DENR-OSEC incurred P37,803,349.66 for its representation expenses,” state auditors said.

“This represents 12.71 percent of the total Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses of P297,505,022.08.

“Of the P37,803,349.66 representation expenses, P15,715,991.21 or 41.57 percent was used for the conduct of the Global Conference on Land Based Ocean connections while P22,087,358.45 went to the procurement of food and catering services for regular/routine office meetings and conferences. The DBM later issued a funding approval for the expenses for the Global Conference.”

The COA said a comparison of the approved P704,000 budget for representation expenses with the P22,087,358.45 that the office of the secretary had spent showed an over-expenditure of P21,383,358.45 or 3,037 percent more than its budget. – Michael Punongbayan, Rhodina Villanueva