DOF cracks whip on LGU treasurers

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Finance (DOF) is cracking the whip on treasurers of local government units (LGUs) who fail to submit financial reports on time.

In a report, the DOF said it has come up with sanctions and measures against delinquent city, provincial and municipal treasurers.

The move is in line with the DOF’s efforts to promote greater fiscal transparency and accountability at the local level and improve the supervision, monitoring and evaluation of the fiscal and financial performance of local governments.

Treasurers who fail to submit their local government units’ Statements of Receipts and Expenditures (SRE) within the prescribed periods will face sanctions – an oral or written reprimand for the first offense, suspension for the second or subsequent offense and dismissal from service for the third offense.

Meanwhile, submission of inaccurate or misleading reports fall under ‘less grave offense’ or simple misconduct, with sanctions ranging from suspension (one month and one day up to six months) for offense and ismissal from the service for second offense.

The SRE is used to evaluate the revenue generation capacity, level of debt and borrowing capacity, expenditure management, and overall financial performance of LGUs.

Local treasurers are required to file the first three quarterly reports on or before the 20th of the month following the end of the quarter, and the year-end report shall be submitted on or before March 31 of the subsequent calendar year.

According to the DOF, seven in every 10 local treasurers failed to comply with the timely submission of SRE reports from 2009 to 2012.

There were also 30 municipalities from 10 provinces that did not submit a single quarterly SRE report for three straight years from 2009 to 2012.

The provinces with the most number of municipalities that continuously failed to submit reports from 2009 to 2012 were the Province of Quezon, with six municipalities, and the Province of Isabela and the Province of Romblon, with five municipalities each.

Records from the Bureau of Local Government also indicated that about 80 municipalities each from Regions 2 (Cagayan Valley), 4A (Calabarzon), 4B (Mimaropa) had at a given year failed to secure approved SRE reports from 2009 to 2012. Scorecard in April this year.