PASA to comply with CoA ruling on PSC funds

MANILA, Philippines - Swimming chief Mark Joseph yesterday said they will comply with the Commission on Audit requirements for National Sports Associations (NSAs) to liquidate cash advances even as the previous PSC (Philippine Sports Commission) leadership had authorized Pagcor to deduct from its monthly remittance the amounts due from the Philippine Amateur Swimming Association (PASA).

“We will abide by all their requirements and we always do it. All these matters are part of normal sports administrative work,” said Joseph in reaction to a recent CoA ruling on disbursing PSC funds to various NSAs.

The PSC, for its part, said it will no longer grant financial assistance to NSAs which have yet to liquidate past cash advances starting Aug. 1.

This is in line with CoA circular 2007-001, which also requires NSAs to have Securities and Exchange Commission registration first before they could draw assistance from the government’s sports funding agency.

The swimming association tops the list of NSAs with unliquidated advances after it failed to liquidate funds worth P30.76 million, including P29 million it tapped from the Pagcor two years ago.

The Pagcor said the PSC through former chair William Ramirez has authorized it in 2007 to deduct from the PSC monthly remittance the amounts due “from the PASA for the legitimate expenses such as food and accommodation, venue fees, and other legitimate expenditures incurred by national athletes who underwent training.”

Joseph said he had tried but failed to meet with Mario Lipana, the CoA auditor to the PSC, a few months ago.

“The last time I was in the PSC to have a conference about accounting, the auditor was unavailable so I guess I’ll schedule a new meeting to clarify whatever needs to be taken up,” said Joseph.

Lipana recently reported that some P107 million worth of government funds remained unaccounted for with 52 of the 57 regular and associate member NSAs failing to liquidate past cash advances.

Angping said the PSC is now disseminating information about the new CoA circular.

“We are starting from scratch so we have to write all these NSAs and ask and require them to submit SEC registration that happens to be one of our requirements before we extend financial assistance,” said Angping. “It’s a long and tedious process and we are ready to receive complaints from all the NSAs, I’m sure they’ll be raising a lot of hell.”    – Joey Villar