COA tells city hall to account for P346m

By LITO RULONA
Correspondent .

THE Commission on Audit (COA) has asked city hall to account for nearly P346 million even as it pointed out in its annual report that there were irreconcilable accounts.

In the 2017 annual audit report on the accounts and operations of the local government, state auditors pointed out that there was a variance of P345,634,532 in city hall’s still to be reconciled combined cash book balance of P1,902,520,268 and the total adjusted book balance of P1,556,885,736.

The report, a copy of which was sent to city hall by COA regional director Celso Vocal, said it was “not in conformity” with the Government Auditing Code, and “the accuracy of the balance could not be ascertained” by auditors.

The annual audit report was approved and signed by Vocal, and was forwarded to Mayor Oscar Moreno on June 29, 2018. A copy of the document was made available at the city council on Friday.

The COA recommended city hall exhaust all efforts to produce valid supporting documents and make proper adjustments of the valid reconciling items.

Auditors also told city hall to request its authorized government depository banks to provide copies of prior year’s bank statements and debit/credit memos of the accounts.

Vocal recommended that the City Accounting Office prepare the reconciliation statements of the cash balances per book with that of cash books of the City Treasurer’s Office at least once every quarter in compliance with section 74 of PD 1445 otherwise known as Government Auditing Code.

The auditors also found that city hall’s cash in bank, local currency, current and savings account in the Special Education Fund amounting to P180,244.530 as of Dec. 31, 2017 was unreliable due to failure of the City Accounting Office to effect the prior years reconciling items.

Other findings:

• The correctness of the land account, amounting to P341,289,610 as of Dec. 31, 2017, was not validated because the lots acquired before September 2005 were excluded in the list of land inventory.
• The existence and accuracy of sub-accounts under inventories, amounting to P101,482,446, could not be ascertained due to the failure to reconcile the balances with the physical count, thereby making the balances unreliable.
• The portion of the cost of unfinished project IP-based Surveillance and Traffic Signalization System, amounting to P14,642,078, was not capitalized, understating the PPE and the Government Equity accounts by the same amounts, which was not in consonance with Section 111 (2) of PD 1445.
• City hall did not undertake the recording of the Public Infrastructure transferred to the registries under the New Government Accounting Standard to the general ledger in the books of accounts in violation of Section 3.7 of COA Circular 2016-004.