GSIS, SSS called out over delayed contribution posting

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) has called out the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and five other state firms over the delayed posting of their members’ contributions and loan payments, affecting the amounts of pensions and benefits that their members will receive.

Meanwhile, it’s an early Christmas for pensioners of the Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) from the private sector as permanent disability pensioners and other qualified beneficiaries are getting an increase in their monthly pension.

In its 779-page 2016 Annual Financial Report on Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCCS) released on Oct. 26, the COA identified the GSIS as the government pension agency with the highest amount of “undistributed collections” totaling P11.51 billion, four times higher than its P2.697-billion undistributed collections in 2015.

The undistributed collections refer to the amounts of contributions and loans paid by the members, pensioners or borrowers but were not credited or posted to their individual accounts.

President Duterte, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez were furnished copies of the COA report on Sept. 25. 

The uncredited members’ contributions were recorded by the GSIS under its AC or “accounts for clearing,” the COA noted. 

The state audit body reminded the GSIS that non-posting of the collected premium contributions and loan payments to the individual members’ accounts is “affecting the accuracy and correctness of presentation of members/pensioners’ data in the subsidiary ledger (SL) and ultimately delaying the processing of benefits of members/pensioners.”

The COA said because of the delayed posting of the collections, some members/pensioners might get lower benefits than what is due them.

“The member’s period with paid premiums (PPP) is the basis in computing the retirement benefits. In case of underpayment of premium, only such portion of the service that is proportionately equivalent to the amount actually received by the system shall be recognized as PPP,” the COA said.

Worse, COA said the GSIS has “no specific policy and procedural guidelines that will require the mandatory reconciliation of the AC balances with the members’ SL.”

SSS, 4 other GOCCs

Meanwhile, the COA also called out the Social Security System (SSS) for P1.135 billion worth of undistributed collections recorded under its “Other Current Liability-Members Loans (OCL-ML).” 

The SSS’s 2016 records have significantly improved from 2015 when it failed to credit P9.939 billion worth of contributions and loan payments to individual members’ account.

The COA, however, said instances of undistributed collections could have been avoided or lowered had the SSS exerted efforts to coordinate and follow up with employers with problematic contributions and loan payments records.

The COA noted that some of the employers’ unbalanced transactions dated as far back as February 2007.

“Inasmuch as the SSS have identified the (employers) and their SBR (special bank receipt) numbers and dates, these employers should have been immediately informed. These employers and member-borrowers may not have known that their payments were not recorded or deducted from their loans,” the COA said.

The COA said the SSS’s failure to credit its collections to individual member-borrower’s loan ledger “will result in inaccurate loan balances, if not corrected, may result in erroneous amount of benefit claim or delay in receipt of benefit claim.”

The other GOCCs identified by COA as having undistributed collections in 2016 were Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) with P604.154 million, Armed Forces of the Philippines-Retirement and Separation Benefits System (AFP-RSBS) with P5.665 million, Social Housing Finance Corp. (SHFC) with P440.339 million and National Home Mortgage and Finance Corp. (NHMFC) with P118.471 million.

Meanwhile, the ECC has approved a resolution granting an across-the-board increase in the monthly pension of existing and future permanent disability pensioners and other qualified beneficiaries.

The increase, ECC noted, shall have a retroactive application effective Jan. 1 of this year.