OVER P8 million in National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) funds spent by the National Anti-Poverty Council (NAPC) in 2020 and 2021 have been flagged by the Commission on Audit for being unrelated to the anti-insurgency program.
Based on the 2021 audit report on the NAPC, the sum went mostly to travel expenses of NAPC officials and staff even if their stated purposes had no connection whatsoever to the objectives of the task force.
“Most of the disbursement charged to NTF-ELCAC fund included activities and transactions not related to the said fund contrary to Section 4 (3) of PD 1445,” the COA said.
Presidential Decree No. 1445 or the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines provides that trust fund shall be spent only for the specific purpose for which the trust was created.
According to the Registry of Allotments, Obligations and Disbursements — Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (RAOD-MOOE) of the NAPC, the NTF-ELCAC had an adjusted budget of P14.61 million in 2020 and P29.56 million in 2021.
After the audit of expenses incurred in 2020 and 2021, auditors found a total of P3.73 million in various expenses “deemed not in connection with NTF-ELCAC activities.”
The breakdown included P2.362 million paid for “other professional services” where the contract-of-service personnel hired submitted accomplishments irrelevant to NTF-ELCAC; P1.182 million jotted down as “travelling expenses” but these turned out to be regular sectoral meetings of the NAPC hence should have funded out of its own budget; and P38,827 in phone bills that were traced to the regular operations of the agency.
Post audit of the disbursement vouchers led the audit team to more questionable fund utilization.
Auditors listed five expense items with a total cost of P4.294 million — each one listed under “travelling expense-local” charged to NTF-ELCAC fund.
The biggest of these was P3.16 million released to a special disbursing officer (SDO) as cash advance for a series of Sectoral Unification, Capacity Building and Empowerment (SUCBEM) conferences.
The audit team said P3.135 million remains unliquidated but the SDO is no longer around, having resigned from the NAPC on June 30, 2021.
Another cash advance for P992,835 was likewise granted for another series of SUCBEM conference and Kasambayanihan Volunteers’ Workshop but as of yearend 2021, P475,499 was still unliquidated.
“It was observed that claims of travelling expenses-local charged to the fund covered not only those activities related to NTF-ELCAC but also other regular activities and projects of NAPC,” the COA noted.
Informed of the audit findings, the NAPC management said it will require the accountant to avoid charging unrelated expenses to NTF-ELCAC Fund and to ensure that disbursements made from the fund are relevant to the task force’s objectives.
