COA joins Asia workshop on improving audit practices

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit (COA) recently participated in a weeklong regional workshop to improve the conduct of audits of the performance of government agencies in Asia and the Pacific.

The workshop, dubbed “Strengthening of Performance Audit Capacity in Asia and the Pacific,” was a joint initiative of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) Development Initiative (IDI).

It was held from March 6 to 10 at the ADB headquarters in Mandaluyong.

The COA said the workshop aims to “support and facilitate sustainable performance audit practices” of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs).

The ADB and INTOSAI are currently extending technical assistance to the SAIs of six countries: the Philippines, Nepal, Cambodia, Mongolia, Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea.

The COA serves as the Philippines’ SAI.

In his opening remarks, COA Commissioner Roland Pondoc said the workshop “would benefit the six SAIs from Asia and the Pacific in improving their performance audit practices.”

Representing the SAI Philippines in the workshop was COA Performance Audit Office director Michael Racelis as team leader, with COA PAO officers Dondon Marcos, Ria Mae Gutierrez and Carmen Felmyra Jamon as well as Reneson Evangelista of COA Quality Assurance Office as members.

In a statement, the COA said phase 1 of the ADB/IDI project was designed to help the participating SAIs identify their needs in performance audit using International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI) Compliance Assessment Tool or iCAT.

“The assessment also includes exploratory questions relating to ISSAI Principles of Performance Audit,” the audit body said.

The COA said phase 2 of the project, to be held later this year, would focus on “Performance Audit Organization Capacity Development,” which is composed of six packages: Strategic Audit Portfolio and Annual Audit Plan; Review/Alignment of Performance Audit Methodology; Professional Education for Performance Auditors; Pilot Audits; Set-up of PA Quality Management System, and Enhance PA Follow-up Systems.

Performance audit or PA is usually conducted on specific programs and projects of the national government and local government units.

The COA earlier conducted a PA of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program and  found that about 3.82 million or 90 percent of the 4.26 million household-beneficiaries continued to live below the poverty threshold despite being covered by the 4Ps for several years.

In its 2022 PA of the government’s 4Ps, the COA said that based on its evaluation, a total of 3,820,012 household-beneficiaries have been with the program for seven to 13 years and have received cash grants totaling P537.39 billion as of June 30, 2021.

Despite this, the COA said these household-beneficiaries “remained below poverty threshold even after being in the program for a long period of time.”