Former Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has continued his attack on treasurer Diwa Cuevas.
This time, he is asking the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to suspend Cuevas for 60 days to prevent her from influencing the ongoing investigation against her.
Cuevas, for her part, accused Osmeña of harassment.
She said she received information that the former mayor plans to file 20 more cases against her for adverse audit opinion which the city got in the last three years.
Osmeña filed 12 cases against Cuevas before the CSC for failure to comply with Commission on Audit (COA) requirements on the submission of status reports on the city’s compliance with adverse findings in the 2012 Annual Audit Report (AAR).
“It is clear from the comment of COA-7 that Cuevas failed to fully comply with the mandate expected of her being the head of the City Treasurer’s Office. There have been legal mandates to which she openly and willfully disregarded,” said Osmeña’s motion.
Osmeña expressed fear that Cuevas may influence the ongoing investigation, apply pressure on witnesses and tamper documentary evidence if she remains in office.
Cuevas said in a separate interview that it was not her responsibility to provide a status report on her office’s compliance with audit observations.
It should be the COA that should prepare the report, she added.
“CSC already went to COA to ask for status update on the (2012) findings. They did not ask from me. I do not know what is happening now. He (Osmeña) is spreading lies,” she said.
Cuevas said she even secured a copy of the COA-7 letter to CSC asking for more time for them to submit the required status report.
In an October 13 motion which he sent CSC, Osmeña said Cuevas only managed to submit a status report for eight of the 12 audit observations.
He said that audit observations should not be taken lightly because these were made in accordance with constitutional mandate of the state auditors to ensure fiscal responsibility of government agencies.
Osmeña spoke of the city’s failure to properly record some of the disbursements made in 2012, the understatement of several expenses and the overstatement of cash in bank by P17.74 million.
In its audit report, COA said violations were made on the State Audit Code of the Philippines. Section 1111 (2) of the code provides that agency accounts should be properly recorded to ensure fiscal control.
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