CH has ‘enough funds’ to pay IOUS

Official calls on Cebu City Treasurer’s Office and the accounting office to reconcile records

THE Cebu City Government can well afford to pay the close to P400 million it owes different entities since the local government unit has a budget of P5.2 billion this year.

Mayor Michael Rama gave his assurance after Rep. Tomas Osmeña (Cebu City, south district), his rival for the mayoral post in next month’s elections, raised the matter.

“There will always be payables and this is managed by the city administrator (Jose Mari Poblete),” Rama said.

According to the record acquired by Poblete from the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO), the City’s payables amount to only P301.4 million.

Poblete clarified that he was not belying the record that Councilor Margarita Osmeña got from the Office of the City Accountant, but he said the records have to be reconciled.

Conflicting records

The original document that the councilor’s office had was a list of payables worth P389 million. As of yesterday, the amount was down to P366 million.

What Poblete noted, based on his record, was that the scholarship committee’s payables to 11 schools were only P15.3 million. The bulk of this is for the University of Cebu (UC), worth P8 million.

According to the record from the accounting office, the City still

The City’s budget runs in the billions and can cover the City’s payables of close to P400 million: Mayor Michael Rama City Administrator Jose Mari Poblete says he will meet with the local finance committee to get the City’s list of payables

owes P100.7 million to 18 schools in 2012.

It owes UC P36.5 million and the Asian College of Technology (ACT) almost P32 million, according to the accounting record. But in the CTO record, the City has no payable to ACT.

Poblete said they have yet to receive a bill from the school.

The CTO report furnished to Poblete also shows that P265 million of the payables was already issued a check. The rest is subject to the availability of funds.

The City has over a P1 billion in daily balance: P462.5 million from the general fund, P226 million from the special education fund and P408 million from the trust fund.

Aid to barangays

Based on the CTO record, the bulk of the payables is financial assistance to barangays and other fund transfers totalling close to P205 million.

Barangays Calamba, Toong, Day-as, Babag, Labangon, Hipodromo, Sawang Calero and Pari-an have collectibles from the City because they were not able to timely liquidate previous financial assistance.

The City also owes close to P32 million to different suppliers, but the accounting record says the amount is higher.

It owes medical suppliers around P22 million; Information Technology suppliers, P7.6 million; hardware suppliers, P16.9 million; auto suppliers, P31 million; almost P10 million for catering; and P26 million for general merchandise, among others.

The accounting record also shows payables to the Philippine Long Distance Telephone, Metropolitan Cebu Water District and Visayan Electric Company (Veco) worth P17 million.

But the CTO record only shows a payable to Veco for P50 million.

Poblete said he will call the local finance committee to a meeting for the City’s list of payables.

“This can easily be settled because this (payable) is just million when we have a budget in billions. So, mabayran kay millions raman na (It will be paid because that is just in millions),” said Rama.

Councilor Osmeña, in an earlier interview, said that having a budget is one thing but actually having the fund for it is a different story.