The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency on Friday denied spending P74 million for local travels, of which P51.83 million lacked supporting documents.
Director General Aaron Aquino said the total travel of PDEA for 2018 that did not have the required documents was only P22.45 million, and not P51.83 million as reported in the news.
He said PDEA's finance service had already forwarded the lacking documents last May 28 to the Commission on Audit.
“I would like to clarify for it will bring misconception to the public that public funds were being used in violation of the existing rules of COA,” he said.
“I think GMA 7 online misquoted the audit observation of COA,” he added.
The audit report stated “Likewise, 101 disbursement vouchers (DVs), amounting to P51.831 million were found not supported with official receipts.”
The disbursement vouchers with P51,831,293.68 referred to various suppliers and payables of the agency that were paid by PDEA, but it underwent an LDDAP (List of Due and Demandable Accounts Payable), a bank transaction mode of payment that replaced the previous cheque payment system in accordance with COA rules and regulations, PDEA said.
“We are adhering to all COA rules and regulations, however, upon payment to the suppliers through bank deposits, they had not issued us the official receipts,” the PDEA chief said.
Because of such, the agency sent communications to all suppliers to issue "immediately" the much-needed official receipts.
On several occasions, he said he had asked CoA to reconsider check issuance as mode of payment to make sure that PDEA would be issued official receipts upon release of payment.
COA, in a 2018 audit report, flagged PDEA for the issuance of 101 disbursement vouchers for 2018 transactions of local travel expenses of P51.83 million without official receipts.