The Office of the Vice President (OVP) said on Tuesday that its acquisition of over P600,000 in equipment, which had been identified by the Commission on Audit (COA) for failing to follow procedures, had cleared the COA audit.
The OVP issued a statement, responding to House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers party-list Representative France Castro’s accusation that the OVP was "taking shortcuts in procurement rules" in acquiring the products for its satellite offices.
"The Office of the Vice President would like to disabuse the imagination of the ACT Teachers Partylist and the insinuation that the procurement of OVP Satellite Office equipment amounting to P668,197.20, the cost of which was validated by the Commission on Audit and eventually passed the audit, was mired in corruption," as read in the statement.
The state auditors stated in their 2022 Annual Audit Report that the OVP "failed to fully observe the processes and procedures" required under the Procurement Law, or Republic Act 9184, and its implementing rules and regulations for purchasing several pieces of equipment totaling P668,197.20 in its satellite offices.
Castro had urged the OVP to explain and cooperate with investigators regarding the findings of the COA, and he had also urged concerned government agencies to conduct a thorough review of the OVP's procurement processes and overall budget, as well as the Department of Education (DepEd) and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), to ensure compliance with established rules and regulations.
Vice President Sara Duterte is the concurrent Secretary of Education and co-vice chairperson of the NTF-ELCAC.
The lawmaker also stated that she will bring up the COA problem during the upcoming House debate on the OVP's planned budget for 2024.
According to Castro, their duty is to make sure that public funds are spent in a transparent and accountable manner.
The OVP, for its part, stated that the COA did not issue them a notice of suspension or disallowance regarding the aforementioned procurement.
It received an unqualified assessment on its financial statements from COA for four consecutive years, from 2018 to 2021, under the leadership of then-vice president Leni Robredo.
The COA offers an unqualified or unmodified opinion when the state auditor "concludes that the financial statements are prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with the applicable financial reporting framework.
