The Commission on Audit has called out the Office for Transportation Security for procuring P3.02 million worth of office supplies and spare parts of security screening equipment that were not compliant with the law.

In its 2022 report, state auditors discovered that the supplies and equipment are "slow-moving" and "stocked" in the agency's storage area for several years, indicative that the procured items exceeding the two-month requirement prescribed in the provisions of the 2022 General Appropriations Act.

Under Section 27 of the 2022 GAA, the inventory of supplies, materials, and equipment spare parts to be procured "shall not exceed the agency's two-month requirement."

The same section provides that agencies may only increase their inventory of supplies in anticipation of cost increases, necessitated by a national emergency, impending shortage and when otherwise authorized in GAA or in the charter of the agency.

"The purchase of stocks exceeding an agency's one-year requirement shall be subject to approval by the President of the Philippines, upon the joint recommendation of the chairperson of the CoA and the agency head concerned," the provision read.

Based on the audit findings, various supplies such as detector modules, air purification cartridge sets, filter kits, and sampling swabs, among others, were overstocked and slow-moving as of the year-end of 2022.

Records revealed that most of the inventories were procured in prior years for the agency's common-use supplies and spare parts stock of screening equipment stationed at airports.

"These were stocked more than a year in the storage area of the agency, indicative that OTS procured items exceeding the two-month requirement as prescribed by Section 27 of the General Appropriations Act for FY 2022," CoA said.

Meanwhile, OTS informed auditors that the detector modules, which accounted for P2,127,737 of the P3.02 million, were acquired through donations.

CoA said the funds were not maximized and could have been used for other purposes.

Nevertheless, it ordered the OTS to strictly observe the two-month requirement in procuring supplies, materials, and equipment spare parts as mandated in the 2022 GAA.