COA questions accounting of Tarlac properties, equipment

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Audit (COA) has questioned the “correctness, condition and existence” of properties worth about P3.29 billion of the Tarlac provincial government. 

“Due to lack of property records, the failure to conduct physical inventory count and the non-reconciliation with the accounting records, the correctness, condition and existence of various Property, Plant and Equipment account balances totaling P3,292,572,911.84 was not established at the end of 2011,” state auditors said in a recently released report.

The COA report, which was submitted to Tarlac Gov. Victor Yap, blamed provincial officials for the “unascertained” properties, saying that in spite of the agency’s repeated recommendations, “no action was taken to address the various deficiencies in the accounting” for the properties of the provincial government.

“The physical count of property, plant and equipment which should be made annually and reported to COA not later than January 31 of each year was not undertaken in violation of Section 124 of the Manual on NGAS Volume I,” the report added.

COA also noted that no acknowledgment receipts for equipment were issued to some provincial officials and employees for equipment, including service vehicles under their custody and responsibility, thus “proper accountability… could not be immediately identified.”

State auditors further noted that the reported Cash in Bank account balance of P850,716,409.06 of the provincial government “could not be relied upon because it does not reconcile with the balance per cash book and the balance per bank, showing a discrepancy of P425,178,196.03 and P84,946,536.74, respectively.”

“Thus, the accuracy of the Cash in Bank account totaling P850,716,409.06 or 18.89 percent of the total assets as of Dec. 31, 2011 of the provincial government was not established,” the COA said.

The discrepancy, according to state auditors, could not easily be traced due to the failure of the provincial government to maintain the subsidiary ledger and the cashbook for each depository account, in violation of Section 310 of Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code, among other factors.