Officers for two top positions of the University Student Government’s (USG) Commission on Audit (COA) were appointed by the Legislative Assembly (LA) last January 15. Aimee Joyce Gepte now heads the body as its chairperson, while Rafael Laya is now its vice chairperson for audit.
With COA having been reestablished only in the previous academic year, Gepte means to ensure transparency and accountability in the USG’s financial transactions.
She highlighted plans to conduct workshops and compel USG units to be timely in submitting documents and to submit transparency reports. But given cases where units fail to submit documents for audit or refuse to publish transparency accounts, Gepte is proposing a rule where units will only be cleared if they fulfill COA’s requirements.
Further, to align themselves with other constitutional commissions, COA plans to open a depository fund account to “widen” the scope of their future activities.
“COA was inactive for a year. We do not want this to happen again,” Gepte stressed, noting that she intends to maintain continuity in the organization by making sure that “tasks and roles will be passed on smoothly and responsibly.”
Meanwhile, Laya intends to have continuity and consistency within the organization through a stern recruitment process and by boosting their publicity. The rest of his platforms include conducting auditing engagements, training new members, having an extensive recruitment procedure, and addressing pertinent problems in the audit function of COA such as delays in issuing Independent Auditor’s Reports to USG units.
During the session, the Students’ Rights and Welfare Committee of the LA also announced plans to meet with the Dean of Student Affairs to analyze the results of a recent survey called Operation E-ducation: Reimagining Online Learning, which aimed to gauge students’ sentiments on online learning.
