THE Chief Executive was obviously only dismayed in his call for the Commission on Audit (COA) to stop the audit of government agencies, especially those whose transactions needed to be implemented immediately.
In a press briefing, Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque denied that President Rodrigo Duterte is scaring the COA after it released its audit report that made mention of alleged irregularities.
According to the president, the report placed the Department of Health (DOH) on a precarious situation where, as per the report, the DOH apparently wasted no less than P67.3-billion in government funds after it bought expired and near-expiration medicines.
Aside from that, the COA discovered that the DOH failed to distribute a huge chunk of medicines that expired in its storage facilities.
Roque said the president only expressed his dismay on the COA with regard to the issue of alleged mismanagement and misuse by the DOH of its funds.
“I don’t think he made threats. He expressed frustration,” Roque averred.
“There’s no issue there. I guess what the President was saying was that he was frustrated because the public made initial observations with condemnation,” the Palace spokesperson added.
The President reiterated that the country is in an “emergency situation” where transactions need to be fast tracked like in the purchase of equipment by the DOH.
Also, Duterte said it doesn’t necessarily mean that there were irregularities just because the documents submitted by the DOH were incomplete.