COA flags AFP on P615-M 'overpayments' to deceased pensioners


The Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) over the more than P615 million "overpayments" of pension benefits to 7,210 deceased pensioners from 2014 to 2023.

In its audit report, the COA thumbed down what it called as "long-outstanding and uncollected accounts" of the AFP Pension and Gratuity Management Center (AFP-PGMC) as of Dec. 31, 2023 amounting to P615,641,568.54.

"Despite management collection efforts in collecting overpayments and refunds online, the existence of these long outstanding receivables deprives the government of beneficial use of funds and affects the fairness of the presentation of the account in the financial statement," the COA's report stated.

It called on the AFP-PGMC to regularly provide the AFP Finance Center (AFPFC) with the report of pension overpayments due for recovery as a basis for recording appropriate receivables from pensioners and provide access to a monitoring system for recovery of overpayments.