BLGF to impose sanctions on erring local treasurers

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) is preparing to hand down sanctions on local treasurers who fail to  submit financial reports.

In a statement, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said he expects the BLGF to start penalizing by early next year treasurers of local government units (LGUs) who fail to submit their Statement of Receipts and Expenditures (SRE) on time and those who file inaccurate or misleading reports.

Disciplinary actions include oral or written reprimand for the first offense, suspension for the second or subsequent offense and dismissal from service for the third offense.

Submission of erroneous reports, on the other hand, falls under “less grave offense” or simple misconduct with sanctions ranging from suspension (one month and one day up to six months) for offense and dismissal from the service for second offense.

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.

Based on the fiscal sustainability scorecards of 1,477 municipalities, including newly created cities, in the Philippines from 2009 to 2012, first class municipalities still lag in maximizing their own local revenue sources despite having better leverage in mobilizing revenues.

Of 286 first class municipalities with reports, around 40 percent or 116 remain dependent on national government revenues. This dependence is partly because 199 municipalities or 70 percent have poor collections from real property taxes, accounting for less  than 15 percent of their respective local earnings.

 On the average, only 57 percent of collectible real property taxes are realized by provinces and cities.

According to the DOF, the non-compliance of 60 out of 81 provinces or around 75 percent in regularly updating their schedules of market values as basis for imposing the real property tax and special education fund, contributed to the poor performance of municipalities.

Purisima is urging  local governments to fully enforce the collection of local taxes so they could improve their fiscal positions to fund the increasing demand for basic services for the people, without relying solely on national allocations.