MANILA, 20 June — A militant non-government organization (NGO) dealing with migrant Filipinos wants a wider audit of the Overseas Workers Welfare Association’s funds the time it was organized 20 years ago.
Migrante International said a thorough audit is necessary not just to uncover possible irregularities that may have happened in the past but also to enable lawmakers and policy makers to come up with better policies in regard to the protection and welfare of migrant workers.
Migrante chairman Poe Gratela said OFWs may not have any objection if part of the OWWA’s welfare fund is used to finance the audit, so long as the task will be given to an independent auditing firm.
“There will be no anomaly because the auditors know that this is the money of the migrants being audited and the ones asking for the audit are the migrants,” Gratela told Arab News.
Gratela said an independent audit team is preferable to the Commission on Audit (COA), the state auditing agency, whose top officials could be susceptible to political pressure.
COA officials are hostage to political interest groups, he said, because they need their appointment to be confirmed by members of Congress.
“The COA people who do the audit can be fired by these officials so the results can be manipulated to fit in with the desires of politicians,” Gratela explained.
He said the audit should not be conducted on OWWA’s financial position last year but from the time it was created via a Letter of Instruction by them President Ferdinand Marcos.
