Cebu City Hall’s accounting department is seeking the council’s support in writing off from the books unliquidated cash advances of employees and officers who have already died.
City Accountant Mark Salomon said the mayor’s office should also set strict guidelines to ensure that accountable officers are able to liquidate their cash advances within 15 or 30 days.
“It’s difficult because we can no longer run after them,” Salomon told reporters. He said some unliquidated cash advances date as far back as 2006.
Based on regulations from the Commission on Audit (COA), writing off unliquidated cash advances that reach over P50 million need approval from the Commission head office and not just the regional office.
He said COA rules also require a city council resolution authorizing the mayor’s office to request for the writing off of unliquidated cash advances in the city’s books of accounts.
“We already submitted the documents to the city council and hopefully we can get an approval,” Salomon said.
He said the accounting office would finalize the summary as well as the total amount of the unliquidated cash advances.
During its regular session last Wednesday, the City Council in a resolution urged the mayor’s office to file cases against city officials and employees with unliquidated cash advances which exceed 30 days.
The council found out that an administrative aide of the mayor, Carlos “Charlie” Reyes, made a cash advance of P4 million in 2012 but until now has only liquidated around P3 million.
The money was used for the city’s grassroots sports program intended for prizes, honorarium of officiating officials, and sports equipment, among others
Salomon said he withheld Reyes’ salary from January to June last year since he wasn’t able to liquidate the cash advances.
However, Reyes appealed to Mayor Rama to release his salary so that his remittances for GSIS, Pagibig and Philhealth would not be stalled.
Salomon said they agreed as long as he starts to liquidate his cash advances.
“The positive thing about it is that he was able to liquidate around 70 percent of his cash advance since last year. Now there’s only around P1.8 million left to account for,” Salomon said.