COA adopting new technologies

The Commission on Audit is adopting innovative technologies and encouraging citizen participation to ensure the accountability of government officials in handling public funds amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an official said Friday.

COA Chairman Michael Aguinaldo said the COVID-19 pandemic brought about changes in the way government agencies function.

“State auditors adapted to such changes in a manner that, while there is a recognition of a certain level of leniency since agencies need to be creative to ensure effectiveness, efficiency and economy in providing services, and, to ensure the safety of their personnel, the receipt from all sources and utilization of COVID-19 funds and other resources, in cash and in-kind, are still expected to be fully and properly accounted for,” Aguinaldo said during a webinar organized by Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute.

He discussed the topic “Ensuring Accountability through Public Participation and Innovative Audit Initiatives.” 

He said amid the restrictions on face-to-face movements, the new environment had opened opportunities for more creative ways of performing the audit function.

“The COA developed an Audit Modernization Program to enhance its resilience in times of crises or emergency by optimizing the use of science, technology and innovation,” Aguinaldo said.

The commission created the Task Force for Audit Modernization and began testing the use of artificial intelligence to detect statistical anomalies in transactions.

Project MIKA-EL or Machine Intelligence, Knowledge-based Audit, and Experience Learning is an artificial intelligence that is envisioned to work as an audit assistant going through volumes of government records and helping auditors sort and process available digital data for faster and more efficient examination and audit.

“The objective is to bring to the attention of the concerned COA auditors out-of-normal transactions for a closer look and earliest possible detection of fraud. It will also build capacity for remote audit, as well as shift to a paperless submission of documents to the auditor,” Aguinaldo said.

He said the COVID-19 crisis also opened new opportunities to tap into the power of the people as the ultimate stakeholders in public accountability and bring closer to them a better understanding of what the COA does through the Citizen Participatory Audit or CPA.

“The CPA is a mechanism for the sharing of aspirations, goals and objectives between the COA and civil society. We organize and hold annual CPA dialogues where officials and auditors of the COA come face-to-face with representatives of civil society to know each other better, co-create goals and objectives and obtain feedback on possible audit topics and issues that the COA can address,” Aguinaldo said.

He said the CPA was also a technique for partnership among the commission, citizens and civil society organizations in other areas of its work.

“One pernicious mindset is thinking that the work of governance is only for people in the government—the spectator mindset. We would like our people, especially the younger generation, to be involved in the work of governance.  After all, democracy is not only for the people, it is also BY the people,” Aguinaldo said in a statement.

With the limitations in face-to-face movements, the COA, along with the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement Service or PS-PhilGEPS, is also harnessing the value of procurement data.

Aguinaldo said the engagement would also lead to other potential citizen-partnership engagements.

“There are other possible areas for CPA engagements that the participants may be able to identify.  Your suggestions are welcome. Now, more than ever, we need to work together as partners,” he said.