COA to Cebu City: File charges vs. brgy officials who fail to liquidate cash aid

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CEBU CITY, Philippines – The Commission on Audit (COA) urged officials of the Cebu City Government to expedite the liquidation of financial assistance handed to the barangays (villages), and to file complaints against barangay officials who still fail in doing so.

This after they reported in their annual audit findings for Cebu City for the fiscal year of 2019 that approximately P319 million of cash funds allocated to 75 of the city’s 80 barangays remained unliquidated as of December 31, 2019.

“Financial assistance granted to Cebu City Barangays totaling ₱318,515,052.30 remained unliquidated… We (recommend requiring) the Pre-Audit Section of the Accounting Office to expedite the review of the liquidation reports, follow-up, and inform in writing those barangays with suspended liquidations,” COA stated in their findings.

“We also recommended that (the city government) institute legal action to the Barangay Officials with unliquidated financial assistance where several demands have already been rendered,” they added.

Citing response from the city’s accounting office, COA said the city government will be sending notices to barangay captains with pending liquidation reports to shed light on the matter.

Breakdown

Based on COA’s findings, the city has handed out a total of P709.6 million within the circular years of 2009 up to 2019 as financial assistance for 75 barangays.

Of this amount, P362,612, 494.84 were subjected to notices of disallowances (NDs) from state auditors, which meant that barangay officials were told to return a certain amount of money to the source agency, in this case, the city government.

The P319 million of unliquidated cash assistance included the financial aid released as of 2019 and those issued with NDs, COA noted.

COA said P197.3 million, or 62 percent of the unliquidated balance, was suspended when city accountants found ‘certain deficiencies’ and/or lack of required documents in the liquidation reports submitted to them from the barangay level.

“On the other hand, ₱41,431,957.74 or 13 percent were in process by the Pre-Audit Section while ₱79,786,644.08 or 25 percent were still unliquidated,” they said.

“The continued inaction of the concerned recipient barangays on the suspended liquidations and the non-submission of liquidation reports resulted in the substantial balance of the Due from LGUs (local government unit) account,” state auditors added. /bmjo