By: Ben R. Rosario
The Commission on Audit has aired serious concern over security lapses at the supposedly well-protected Malacañang following a number of incidents of theft in one of the agencies directly under the Office of the President.
In the recently-released 2016 audit observations on the Presidential Communications Operations Office, CoA recommended the conduct of investigation into the disappearance of various items, both personal and government owned, last year.
“Physical safety measures adopted by the Agency are inadequate to safeguard the assets against loss. The AO also failed to immediately file with the Auditor the Notice of Loss or to request for relief of accountability for the missing items within the reglementary period of 30 days from the occurrence of the loss, in violation of Section 73 of PD No. 1445,” CoA stated.
The state audit agency also lamented that “no thorough investigation” was conducted on the theft, adding that this is “contrary to an adequate internal control system.”
Audit examiners revealed that a Hitachi projector disappeared on December 16, 2016 in the Human Resources Division of the PCOO located at the New Executive Building in Malacañang.
“Recently, a similar situation of a missing equipment, Aspire Laptop costing P36,437.50 issued to Mr. Victor Cusi occurred but still no investigation was ordered,” COA reported.