Gov’t charged OFWs P13M too much—COA

The government made an extra P13 million in 2010, but it was at the expense of overseas Filipino workers who were overcharged “Balik Manggagawa” processing fees abroad, according to the Commission on Audit (COA).

Balik Manggagawa processing fees are collected from OFWs going on home leave to cover an overseas employment certificate that would allow them to return to their jobs.

In its 2010 report on the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the COA said Philippine Overseas Labor Officers (Polo) used arbitrary rates of exchange in charging the Balik Manggagawa processing fees, which under POEA guidelines were supposed to be only P100 or the foreign currency equivalent.

The COA said Polos in 27 countries charged arbitrary rates despite the POEA limit.

The audit agency found that total Polo collections in 2010 amounted to P40.207 million. Had the mandated fee of P100 been followed, the total collected from 269,454 OFWs should have only been P26.945 million.

There were “total excess charges” amounting to P13.262 million, the COA said. This was P960,615 more than what was excessively charged in 2009, it added.

“While the excess charges were beneficial to the government, being the sole beneficiary of the over-collection, the OFWs were deprived of enjoying the much lower actual rates, particularly the low-salaried workers,” the COA said.

The POEA, for its part, told the COA that guidelines to address the issue had been drafted and were awaiting approval by the Department of Labor and Employment.

According to the audit agency, while Polo guidelines did not provide specific foreign currency equivalents to the P100 fee, the POEA issued a memorandum on the limit of the fees.

Originally posted: 5:47 pm | Monday, January 16th, 2012