chief accountant as member of TWG

Good day!

I would like to be clarified whether a chief accountant could possibly be a member of TWG. I believe it has different functions from the BAC but our COA resident call our attention saying it's not allowed. Please enlighten. Thanks.

I believe that it is a COAs concern on the interpretation of its issuances.

Under the Circular 2003-004,

Under Republic Act No. 9184, the Government Procurement Reform Act which amended Executive Order No. 40 on the same subject, the establishment of Bids and Award Committee (BAC) in all agencies of the government including state universities and colleges, government owned and/or controlled corporations, government financial institutions and local government units is mandated. Specifically, the BAC shall be responsible for ensuring compliance with the standards in the law in the procurement of goods and services and prosecuting infrastructure projects of the agency.
On the other hand, the Chief Accountant and the personnel under him are tasked to approve the voucher in payment of such goods and services procured and of the infrastructure prosecuted and to certify to the availability of funds for the project subject of the bidding. Thus, it becomes necessary to ensure that the procurement and payment functions are segregated in keeping with the rules and principles of good internal control and to avert the possibility of conflict of interest that may arise under the circumstances.

The purpose of the circular is to avert the possibility of conflict of interest.
Bear in mind that under the under the IRR it provides that;

Section 12 (k) perform such other related functions as may be necessary,
including the creation of a Technical Working Group (TWG) from a pool of technical, financial, and/or legal experts to assist in the procurement process, particularly in the eligibility screening, evaluation of bids, and post-qualification.

If conflict of interest has a possibility to arise it is safe to say that CA is also prohibited to be a TWG member because of conflict of interest.

However the circular is silent if CA is also prohibited to be a TWG.

Perhaps these links can help

http://gppb.topicsolutions.net/procurement-organizations-f11/bac-composition-t27.htm

http://gppb.topicsolutions.net/procurement-organizations-f11/bac-secretariat-and-accounting-office-t251.htm?highlight=accounting+bac

Thanks so much Sir WormaixJr for your views and Sir Ruel for accomodating my concern. It did help a lot!

Welcome

chris wrote:Good day!

I would like to be clarified whether a chief accountant could possibly be a member of TWG. I believe it has different functions from the BAC but our COA resident call our attention saying it's not allowed. Please enlighten. Thanks.

There is no prohibition for the Accountant from being a member of the TWG. If the COA Auditor says so, he/she should be able to come up with the corresponding COA Circular that prohibits being designated as a TWG member. So far, the Circular that COA has issued, as far as I am aware of, is only the prohibition from being a BAC Member.

In the absence of any prohibition in RA 9184 and its IRR, then we can say that the Accountant is not prohibited from member a TWG member.

chris wrote:Good day!

I would like to be clarified whether a chief accountant could possibly be a member of TWG. I believe it has different functions from the BAC but our COA resident call our attention saying it's not allowed. Please enlighten. Thanks.

The COA has develop Guide in the Audit of procurement, and shall be used as reference guide for all audit related to the GPRA. (COA memo 2010-003) Relative thereto I have been reading these guide and I could not find any reference that will prohibit Chief Accountant from being member to the TWG. Maybe you could ask your COA resident Auditor for clarification.

I don't no exactly about it please clear from here http://www.costanzoeassociati.it/en/index.html if you get some help from this site.

In our office, the chief accountant is a member of BAC, is there any penalty on this?

accounting wrote:In our office, the chief accountant is a member of BAC, is there any penalty on this?

For similar topic, follow the LINK . Peace

Peace be with you too.

Can't the COA or any other government body correct this one?