COA: Palace news bureau’s phone, Internet bills excessive

Malacañang’s News and Information Bureau (NIB), which handles President Aquino and his administration’s news coverage and media relations concerns, spent too much on mobile phone and Internet service subscriptions last year.

The Commission on Audit (COA), in a 2015 report released yesterday, said such unchecked spending could result in the incurrence of unnecessary expenses, in violation of auditing rules and regulations.

State auditors said the agency has no written policy on the issuance and utilization of postpaid plans and prepaid mobile allowances, indicating lapses on internal control.

“Analysis of all paid disbursement vouchers related to these transactions totaling P939,350.45 in 2015 disclosed that NIB had 34 postpaid plans granted to its officials and employees and allowed reimbursement of prepaid mobile allowances to its field employees assigned in the Philippine News Agency,” the COA report said.

“We noted that the postpaid plans varied from P1,000 to P3,500 per month, with one plan worth P5,000 per month. Scrutiny of the statement of accounts showed that the actual utilization of several postpaid plans exceeded the approved plan per month. However, these were still allowed and paid by NIB despite the absence of required justification by the end-users,” state auditors noted.

The audit team said there was no ceiling for the reimbursements made for the mobile allowances of employees and only official receipts, regardless of the amount, were required to support the reimbursements.

“Since NIB does not have written policy on the issuance and utilization of postpaid plans and prepaid mobile allowances, this privilege is subject to abuse and might result in the incurrence of unnecessary expenses,” the COA report stated.

State auditors said the agency should strengthen its control over postpaid plans and prepaid mobile allowances by establishing written policies to be disseminated to all end-users for guidance and/ or compliance.

As for last year’s Internet expenses, the COA report said the NIB spent P1,794,770.99 “by subscribing to numerous Internet connections that may result to incurrence of unnecessary expenses prohibited in COA Circular No. 2012-003 dated Oct. 29, 2012.”

Records show that the agency actually subscribed to three Internet service providers ( ISPs), holding 49 different accounts with monthly plans ranging from P999 to P25,000.

The NIB told the audit team that the Internet subscriptions were allowed because of the necessity for uninterrupted and faster connections for its operations.