Most of us are familiar with the term audit. When this comes to mind, we associate it with proper management of money by institutions. Unbeknownst to some, auditing is not limited to money matters. There is such a thing as environmental audit. And with the worsening challenges affecting the environment, now more than ever, environmental audit must be given focus.
Commission on Audit, backed with internationally accepted standards obtained from its membership with the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI)-Working Group on Environmental Auditing (WGEA), has been involved for quite sometime now, in auditing the environment, utilizing several globally accepted processes and strategies.
INTOSAI and WGEA Connect
To promote a better audit atmosphere in their respective countries, the INTOSAI, the professional organization of supreme audit institutions (SAI) in countries that belong to the United Nations or its specialized agencies was established. As members of the INTOSAI, there are exchange of ideas, knowledge and experience with other international organizations and stakeholders in the field of government auditing.
INTOSAI has three strategic goals: (1) Professional Standards; (2) Capacity Development; and (3) Knowledge Sharing, that has twelve working groups. Main focus of these working groups is to impart information on the different SAIs’ efforts to support greater professionalism and continuous improvement of SAIs.
The INTOSAI-WGEA, formed in 1992 during the Rio Earth Summit on sustainable development, is one of these working groups. Its foremost aim is to use audit mandates and methods in the field of environmental protection and sustainable development.
INTOSAI-WGEA supports good governance by providing SAIs guidance and research on accountable, rule-based, and efficient governance. WGEA also highlights rising approaches related to participation and transparency, such as Citizen Participatory Audit approach or how to communicate audit results better.
INTOSAI WGEA and Philippine SAI
Commission on Audit or SAI Philippines, became a member of the INTOSAI-WGEA in 2013. Being an active member of the working group, SAI Philippines hosted the 16th INTOSAI-WGEA in September 2014, a relevant event to the COA’s project on environment concerns, particularly disaster risk reduction and management.
COA fully supports the government in its campaign on disaster risk reduction through the proper utilization of funds, primarily on the allocation and use of disaster risk reduction fund. Testament to this is the audit that was conducted in the implementation of the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Program for Calendar Year 2012-2015 and the utilization of the 5% DRRM Fund for 2015 by the Tuguegarao City-Region II through its CPA program. Though there were several favorable observations, the audit yielded significant observations on incomplete project implementation, low utilization of disaster funds, incomplete documentation of disbursements, and weak distribution of relief goods, among others. Consequently, recommendations were given to the LGU to improve its implementation and address the problems.
Another example of auditing the environment is COA’s Performance Audit on National Greening Program (NGP) where it was found that reforestation remains an urgent concern but fast-tracking its process without adequate preparation and support by and among stakeholders would lead to waste of resources. This audit aimed to determine the extent of impact of the program to the environment and beneficiaries and whether the program was administered in accordance with established policies and procedures. Unsurprisingly, COA discovered challenges in the program which were reported in the audit. On a positive note, the NGP beneficiaries were grateful as it augmented their household budget. Groups and communities were transformed into cooperatives, gaining access to credit finance, equipment and technical assistance from government agencies.
The NGP has adopted the geotagging technology that has the capability to show the public the status of the program through virtual visitation. By using geographical information programs like Google Earth, the public can virtually visit an NGP site in the country and monitor the progress from their own computers anytime of the day. Geo-tagging is applied not only for validation of NGP plating sites as to their existence and location but also for the evaluation of site conditions.
The Google Earth application allows its users to view historical images of an area. Using Google Earth to locate an NGP site, the team searched for satellite images of the area using geo-tagged pictures of the NGP site and was able to measure the area. By comparing the geo-tagged photos of the NGP site taken in year 1 and years after, the existence and progress of the NGP site could be monitored.
The environment’s well-being remains one of the top concerns of each country. And with each passing day, there is always news about the worsening environment.
Among those on the table are the projects stipulated in the 2023-2025 WGEA Work Plan, such as the: (1) climate and biodiversity, (2) environmental accounting, (3) green fiscal policy tools, and (4) sustainability reporting, among others.
(Roland Café Pondoc is a Commissioner of COA)