Taguig City –The Head of PEZA’s Finance Group has clarified that the COA audit observations subject of the Rappler story has already been responded to COA and is considered closed.
Rappler on 14 July 2019 published a story entitled “Corruption red flags: Fake transactions, doubtful accounts in government spending”. The said report ranked PEZA third in terms of flagged doubtful accounts in the 2017 COA audit reports.
PEZA Deputy Director General (DDG) for Finance and Administration J. Porfirio Ll. Yusingco said on Monday that the said Rappler story pertained to COA’s Calendar Year 2017 Audit Observation for Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ), which is one of the four public economic zones managed under PEZA.
“The COA audit observation was regarding the propriety and regularity of payments to Job Order employees which amounted to P35.219 million and for escorting fees or transshipment services that amounted to P205,360.00 which according to COA, could not be ascertained due to incomplete documents,” Yusingco said.
The Head of the Finance Group however underlined that “In 2018, PEZA had already explained to COA that the subject job order employees were not considered as job order employees of PEZA, but were actually employees of a service contractor deployed to PEZA.”
“On the other hand, the amount of P205,360.00 referred to the claim for transshipment escorting services of PEZA Police Officers and the required supporting documents were already submitted to COA,” said Yusingco.
“PEZA COA Auditors have already accepted PEZA’s explanation and have considered the account as closed. It no longer appears in the audit report of 2018,” Yusingco emphasized.
PEZA’s Good Governance and Transparency
On her part, PEZA Director General Charito B. Plaza said that “it is among the goals & program of the New PEZA to fix the management systems and processes to improve good governance, transparency, and ease of doing business, as well as to promote decentralization, regionalization, and to bring closer to the people PEZA’s services.”
“The New PEZA under my stewardship is every Filipino-driven to attain full industrialization, accelerate rural progress through robust development of different types of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to maximize the production, manufacturing & export capability of Filipinos,” Plaza said.
Plaza emphasized that PEZA is self-reliant, self-sustaining, and resource-generating government agency. For year 2017, PEZA remitted P 677,513 million in dividends to the national government.
PEZA exports contribute 63% of the country’s total commodity export and 80% of total Philippines service export and account for 16% of Gross Domestic Product of the country. #