The Justice department on Sunday vowed to fully comply with the recommendations made by the Commission on Audit for the proper disbursement of its funds.
This was after the agency flagged the department’s undocumented fund transfers, payrolls and unauthorized bank accounts involving P621 million of its budget in its 2017 audit report.
“The finance people at the DoJ undertake to comply with all the recommendations of the CoA and assure that all public monies are accounted for,” Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said in text message.
“As [the] new SOJ, [I] will make sure that this will be so.”
The CoA report said the department transferred P621,646,352.48 from its modified disbursement system regular account with the Land Bank of the Philippines to its ATM current payroll account with the same bank in 2017, instead of reverting the money to the Treasury in accordance with rules.
It also questioned the payment of P305,390,659.08 with no corresponding transfer of funds.
“The ATM account was used as a parking account for unused NCA [notice of cash allocation] to avoid lapsing,” the commission said.
Under government policies, the funds not used by agencies at the end of every quarter must be returned to the Treasury, the commission said.
“We recommend that the Finance Service stop the practice of transferring funds to the ATM Payroll account for transactions without valid expenses and to return to the Bureau of the Treasury any deposit without valid obligations,” the commission said.
The agency also flagged as anomalous the several Journal Entry Vouchers that were not supported by supporting documents during the stint of former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.
Guevarra replaced Vitaliano Aguirre who resigned on April 5.
The four JEVs amounting to P27,680,253.40 were all dated March 1, 2018.
The auditors also flagged as anomalous the existence of three unauthorized bank accounts holding a combined amount of P65,685,647.45.
Reacting to the CoA report, Aguirre denied involvement in the alleged irregular transfers of DoJ unused funds to its automated teller machine payroll account.
“As explained by the Financial Service officials, the transfer of funds amounting to P621,646,352.48 from January 2017 to September 2017 represents the Notice of Cash Allocation transferred from the DoJ MDS Account (LBP Account No. 2059-90024-5) to DoJ ATM Payroll Account (LBP Account No. 0592-1060-51),” Aguirre said.
“The transfer of NCA was made to the DoJ ATM Payroll Account because payment of salaries of employees, being regular expenses, usually demands a huge chunk of the released NCA.
“This would ensure that there will be no case that payment of salaries will be delayed. At any rate, all balances of the ATM payroll account are utilized for the payment of salaries and emoluments of officials and employees, in the Main Office and in the Regions.”
Aguirre said he had no participation whatsoever in the transactions that were the subject of the Annual Audit Report released by the CoA as no signature was ever required of the undersigned in connection with the transactions.
“At the outset, it is worth highlighting that the financial transactions in the Department of Justice are handled primarily by the Financial Service, from the Budget and Accounting Divisions and under their Director IV,” Aguirre said.