The Commission on Audit (COA) has recommended stricter measures, including withholding salaries and imposing penalties, against officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) who failed to liquidate cash advances (CAs) amounting to Php 6.96 billion as of December 31, 2023.
In its 2023 Annual Audit Report, COA flagged DepEd’s failure to strictly adhere to laws and regulations, resulting in the accumulation of unliquidated CAs.
Key deficiencies included granting CAs without proper authority, transferring funds between accountable officers (AOs), failure to bond AOs properly, and paying expenses like Service Recognition Incentives (SRI) through CAs instead of direct payment.
Based on the report, the top regions with the highest unliquidated balances include;
- Region VII (Central Visayas): 1.31 billion
- Region VIII (Eastern Visayas): 1.01 billion
- Region XII (SOCCSKSARGEN): 819.4 million
- Region IX (Zamboanga Peninsula): 537.1 million
- Region VI (Western Visayas): 513.9 million
- NCR (National Capital Region): 301.9 million.
To address this, COA recommended the following: stop granting new cash advances to officials with pending balances, issue demand letters to active employees to compel liquidation, withhold salaries and dues of delinquent AOs until obligations are settled, impose penalties under Civil Service Commission (CSC) rules for delays, and write off dormant accounts unresolved for over a decade.
The report also noted that in some cases, outstanding balances involved accountable officers who had retired, resigned, gone AWOL, or transferred, further complicating the recovery process.
