THE Commission on Audit has asked the Bureau of Treasury to explain the purpose of its two cash sub-accounts with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas holding combined balances of P28,656,966,574.11.
In a report released last Dec. 14, CoA said both accounts “have been idle for three years due to unknown details of their intended purpose.”
The Commission reminded the Bureau of Treasury that the maintaining accounts with specified or unexplained purpose ran contrary to Executive Order No. 449 requiring the agency to manage government funds in such a way as to optimize utilization of meager resources.
Based on the audit report, the bigger account held P28.266 billion, while the other contained P391.013 million.
The date of last transaction involving either one was recorded on December 2011.
When asked for an explanation, the audit team was informed by the chief treasury operations officer II of the National Cash Accounting Division that both accounts “have special purposes which thereby restricted the use thereof in order to ensure availability when needed.”
“Further inquiry disclosed that there are no documents to show the details of the intended purposes to determine whether there is immediate need for the funds or the funds can be used instead for other investible undertakings rather than remain idle,” the CoA report read.
Keeping such amount unused for three years had deprived the national government of potential income of at least P507.23 million based on average BSP fixed rate of 1.77 percent on time deposits.
“We recommended that Management exert effort to retrieve documents pertaining to the aforementioned cash maintained with the BSP to obtain information on its existence and status do that proper action may be instituted to maximize use thereof,” CoA said.