COA sees duplicate offices in Talisay

CEBU, Philippines - At least five offices created by Talisay City Mayor Johnny de los Reyes were found to be duplicating or overlapping the works and functions of other city departments.

This was contained in the three-page Audit Observation Memorandum report of the Commission on Audit after the agency reviewed the transactions of the city.

State auditor Ma. Daisy Bercede noted there were duplication and overlapping of functions performed by regular and job order employees on the same transactions, which already resulted to longer processing time and possible loss and misplacement of documents.

Bercede also pointed out this may create conflict in offices or waste man-hours and money of the government.

Among the offices found to be duplications of other departments were that of project monitoring team as a duplication of the city engineer's office; job order monitoring team for Civil Service Unit; the CT-Traffic Operation Development Authority for flying squad task force patrol; and the Mayor's Task Force for City Health Office and Pharmacy, the Text to the Mayor Team, and Talisay Rescue Emergency Action Team.

"We recommend that management review the duties and responsibilities of regular and job order employees, particularly in the offices, to avoid duplication and overlapping of functions," Bercede said in her report.

For instance, the regular functions of the city engineering office are also done by the monitoring team under the Office of the Mayor, which involve, among others, conducting inspection and reviewing  application and documents.

COA said the present set-up would take more than a week, instead of five days, for permits to be issued since inspection has to be conducted and documents reviewed by two offices.

On the other hand, the CSU and job order monitoring team have the same functions, which also monitor the attendance of the employees.

"We commend and appreciate the effort exerted by the monitoring team in validating the attendance of job order employees. However, there should be proper coordination with the CSU to avoid duplication and overlapping of functions," the COA report read.

COA also noticed that the city health and pharmacy is duplicating the functions of the City Health Office and the three rural health units. The latter give medicines to patients but whenever they run out of stock, the patients are referred to the indigents' pharmacy.

COA advised the mayor to limit the creation of offices or groups with functions that are distinct from the regular functions of the various department of the city in order to ensure that funds are used economically and efficiently. (FREEMAN)