COA tells Mandaue City: Stop releasing special cash advances to elected officials

The Mandaue City Presidencia | CDN Digital photo/Brian J. Ochoa

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Elected officials cannot receive special cash advances.

This was the reminder of state auditors to the city government of Mandaue after finding that the city has disbursed a total of P209,000 in cash advances to members of the City Council in 2019 for their registration to events of the Philippine Councilors League.

According to the Commission on Audit, granting special cash advances to elected officials is not permitted under the rules and regulation on the granting, utilization and liquidation of cash advances in COA Circular No. 97- 002.

“The granting of special cash advances to the elected officials is a violation of paragraph 4.1.4 of COA Circular No. 97-002, which reads, ‘Only permanently appointed officials shall be designated as disbursing officers.  Elected officials may be granted a cash advance only for their official traveling expenses,’” COA said in its 2019 Annual Audit Report for the city.

According to the COA report, the 10 city councilors, Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) and Sangguniang Kabataan Federation presidents, who are ex-officio members of the Council, and the Vice Mayor were issued with individual checks amounting P9,800 each, or a total of P127,400.

The amount was for the the City Council members’ participation in the PCL’s annual celebration.

Six council members received another P9,400 each while three other councilors received P8,400 each for their attendance to the PCL Cebu Provincial Federation Election.

The special cash advances for the PCL Cebu event did not include the Vice Mayor Glenn Bercede and Councilors Malcolm Sanchez, Jimmy Lumapas, and Andreo Icalina.

COA said that the policy requiring that only permanent officials and employees may be designated as disbursing officers was designed to promote full accountability for government funds.

“The full accountability is ensured if those, who are held accountable for public funds, are holding permanent positions in the government,” COA said.

Considering that elected officials were only serving in office for a fixed term, COA said they could not be considered as permanent employees; and thus, they would not be considered eligible to receive special cash advances.

“Also, the prohibition in the grant of cash advance to elected officials other than for the above-stated purposes and without compliance with the requirements of said rules provides for an efficient and effective control over funds of the Local Government Unit and is a useful tool in the reduction of risk of exposure of the funds of the local government unit to the incurrence of unnecessary expenditures,” the COA noted.

“We recommended that Management discontinue granting cash advances to the elected officials for purposes other than that stated in Item 4.1.4 of COA Circular No. 97-002 dated February 10, 1997, and Rules and Regulations Implementing RA 8185 (An Act amending Section 324 (d) of the Local Government Code,” the COA said.

In the Management’s comment section of the report, the city government said it would adhere to the said regulation.

Instead of disbursing individual checks to the elected officials, COA said the city should have just directly paid the registration fees of the councilors to the sponsoring agency, in this case the PCL./dbs