Town has to liquidate P6.3M cash advances

CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Audit has questioned the P6.3 million worth of cash advances incurred by Sibonga town, which has not been liquidated up to December 31, 2013.

In her annual report on Sibonga’s operations for 2013, state auditor Elizabeth Beringuel said the town has a total of P6.3 million in unliquidated cash advances as of the last day of 2013, which is in violation of Sections 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 of COA Circular 97-002.

 Beringuel said the unliquidated funds have resulted in the “mistatement of the income and expense and other related accounts and possibly exposing unused or unremitted cash in the hands of concerned accountable officials to misapplication due to long overdue liquidation and settlement.”

 COA recommended that the town require the officers accountable “to immediately submit their liquidation reports” and that the town “should impose sanctions” by withholding salary should these officers fail to do so within the prescribed period.

 Based on COA’s audit, P161,887.32 of the P6.3M cash advances were from officers and workers who were no longer in active service or have already died.

 The state audit team also noticed that the town had P9.6 million cash advances, which had no supporting documents except for 35 checks that carried the amount in tranches.

 These cash advances, COA said, were drawn by the disbursement officer from the payroll fund but were not supported by approved payrolls, which violates the COA circular.

The circular states that cash advances must be supported with documents like a copy of designation by the agency head and an approved application for bond (for cash advance), among others.

 COA said this resulted in the “irregular disbursement of government funds.”

 “As a result, we could not determine if the amount of cash advance made was equal to the net amount of payroll for the given pay period,” the state auditor said.

 COA told Sibonga to comply with the provisions of COA Circular 97-002 and that the disbursing officer should “only be allowed” to draw any more cash advances for payroll fund equal to the net amount of the duly certified and approved payrolls.

In 2013, the town earned P85.9 million or an increase of 12 percent from the previous year.  (FREEMAN)