The Commission on Audit (COA) said the Supreme Court (SC) has agreed to close seven bank accounts with P268.3 million in deposits but have been inactive since 2015.

It said the inactive or dormant bank accounts have been flagged by the COA in its 2021 audit report.

COA said it sent a letter to Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo on the status of the seven inactive Continuous Form Checks (CFC) accounts which were previously used for payroll.

When the Automated Payroll System (APS) was introduced in May 2014, the SC stopped accessing funds from the CFC accounts.

"As of June 30, 2022, we noted that these accounts were no longer used and no transaction was recorded in the bank per bank statements since 2015," COA’s letter stated. It added that the only transactions recorded were the interests earned from January 2007 to March 2021 and cash deposit made on January 17, 2013.

COA said the SC’s CFC accounts consisted of: P48,106,111.56 for the Regional Trial Court; P5,625,853.69 for the Metropolitan Trial Court; P83,689,486.03 for the Municipal Circuit Trial Court; P39,486,258.48 for the Municipal Trial Court in Cities; P81,320,810.40 for the Municipal Trial Court; P95,090.20 for Shari'a District Court, and P10,071,424.75 for Shari'a Circuit Court.

In its letter, COA also recommended to the SC the remittance of the total amount of P268,395,035.11 to the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) pursuant to the Permanent Committee Joint Circular No. 4-2012 dated Sept. 11, 2012 and Section 10 of the General Provisions of General Appropriations Act (GAA) Fiscal Year 2021.

It said the Permanent Committee Joint Circular directs the reversion of all dormant accounts and unnecessary special and trust funds to the General Fund (GF), while Section 10 of General Provisions of the GAA FY 2021 mandated that Special Accounts, Fiduciary or Trust Fund, and Revolving Fund be closed down and reverted to the GF "when there is no legal basis for creation, when their terms have been expired, or when they are no longer necessary for the attainment of the purposes for which the said funds were established."

"Since there were no disbursements and withdrawals made from CYs 2007 to 2021 on the fund..., the account is no longer necessary as the purpose for which it was established is no longer existing, thus, should be reverted to GF and for remittance to the BTr pursuant to the above-mentioned regulations," the COA said.

"We recommended and Management agreed to direct the Accounting Department (AD), Office of the Court Administrator (OCA), to facilitate the closure of the CFC current accounts and Retirement Gratuity Fund and remit the total balance to the BTr," it added.