COA questions cash advance of 9 City Hall executives

The Commission on Audit (COA) has questioned the Cebu City government for granting cash advances amounting to P6.7 million to accountable officers despite their unliquidated cash advances.

The COA report detailed that the city has released the money to at least nine City Hall employees, even though the previous ones were not yet settled.

“Of the P6,705,935.72, P1,891,315.72 or 28 percent pertains to the first cash advance granted per AO while the remaining P4,814,620.00 or 72 percent were for succeeding cash advances that were still granted even though previous obligations to liquidate the P1,891,315.72 were still not settled as a pre-requisite for granting further cash advances,” read a portion of the report.

In the COA report, these nine accountable officers who failed to liquidate their previous cash advances are Ma. Luisa Amaya, Flora Natividad Bartolome, Mario Dennis Calvo, Eirah Faye Flores Castañares, Julius Golosino, Jofrey Roble Guanzon, Jessica Maribojoc, Ma. Kristina Reyes, and Apple Tribunalo.

The recent cash advances of these City Hall employees were for special purpose, travel, among others.

With this, the COA recommended that the city government instruct these accountable officers to settle their outstanding cash advances pursuant to COA Circular No. 97-002.

The auditing office directed the city to stop granting cash advances unless the previous ones are fully liquidated.

Failure to liquidate is in violation of Section 111.2 of PD 1445 or "Government Auditing Code of the Philippines."

The provision provides that “keeping of accounts. The highest standards of honesty, objectivity and consistency shall be observed in the keeping of accounts to safeguard against inaccurate or misleading information.”

Further, the COA has recommended that the city mayor and city accountant should consider imposing sanctions stated under Section 5.1.3 of COA Circular No. 97-002 on the withholding of the salary of the AOs.

In the report, the city government was quoted that these accountable officers are allowed for additional cash advances since their previous cash advances were either not yet due for liquidation or a proper accounting or liquidation has been submitted.

“The cited officials and employees were still granted new cash advances since their previous cash advances were either not yet due for liquidation or a proper accounting or liquidation has been submitted for such,” it reads. —

O. Leyson/GAN

Odessa