The Commission on Audit (COA) said it was not investigating nor reprimanding the Quezon City government, but merely requesting pending documentation to complete its year-end audit.
The COA also said that the Quezon City government has completed its documents for the year 2020, in line with the P479 million payment for the city’s procurement of relief packs and that the documents were in full compliance with audit standards, and no irregularities were flagged.
It also issued a COA certification for the local government. “With this COA certification, I hope we can finally put these ridiculous accusations to rest,” noted As mentioned previously, this was a sad attempt to turn very old news into fake news, and unfortunately, even the COA had to be involved in this nonsense,” Pia Morato, the spokesperson of Mayor Joy Belmonte.
“Anakalusugan party-list nominee and Quezon City mayoralty candidate Mike Defensor earlier claimed that the commission was “investigating” the LGU for questionable purchases.
Out of the P479 million, Defensor said the Quezon City government spent P385 million on food packs, P84.7 million on rice and plastic bags, and P9.4 million on noodles.
He quoted a COA report saying the : “Payments for relief goods totaling P479.120 million sourced from Bayanihan grant to cities and municipalities were not supported with complete documentation contrary to Section 4 (6) of Presidential Decree No. 1445, and Item No. 3.6 of Government Procurement Policy Board Circular No. 01-2020 dated April 6, 2020.”
“Likewise, the posting and reporting requirements under Item Nos. 4.1 and 4.4 of Local Budget Circular No. 125 dated April 7, 2020, were not complied with. Thus, the validity and regularity of the transactions cannot be ascertained,” the COA report stated.
Defensor also said he is willing to resign as a lawmaker if the COA report questioning the validity of the city’s pandemic food pack procurements is “fake news,” as city hall claims.
He said he is standing by his statement on COA’s adverse findings on the use by the city government of P479 million given by the national government in 2020 as Covid-19 pandemic financial assistance.
“If Mayor Joy Belmonte can prove that it is fake news, then I am willing to resign as a member of Congress. If she cannot, then she should resign,” said Defensor.
Defensor urged Quezon City residents and any interested citizen to visit the COA website (coa.gov.ph, then click annual reports, 2020, local government units, national capital region, Quezon City) for the report.
Defensor has claimed that the city government has overpriced food packs by as much as 45 percent or P514 resulting in a loss of hundreds of millions in taxpayers’ money.
He said the grocery packages were priced at P1,149.98 each. However, a canvass made his his staff showed that these could be bought only at P636 per pack.