COA flags Misor’s quarter billion pesos unliquidated cash advances

STATE auditors have repeatedly flagged Misamis Oriental for its propensity for not liquidating its cash advances for at least three years in a row.

In its 2022 Annual Audit Report, the Commission on Audit (COA) called the attention of the province to its unliquidated cash advances going back more than three years.

In his letter to Misamis Oriental Gov. Peter Unabia, dated April 17, COA-10 Director Mathew Rey Magno pointed out the more than three years of unliquidated cash advances that have now ballooned to a whopping P273.682 million.

State auditors said this accrued amount of unliquidated cash advances was due to “inadequate monitoring” and “non-enforcement of the regulations to liquidate cash advances at the end of the year.”

“Compel all the Special Disbursing Officers concerned to submit immediately the necessary documents and cashbooks/records to fully account and liquidate their long overdue cash advances,” the audit report reads in part.

The report also recommended that all disbursing officers immediately return unspent cash advances. State auditors said the provincial accountant and the provincial treasurer should be instructed to deduct and withhold the salaries of the disbursing officers who fail to comply.

However, this is nothing new to the Capitol bureaucracy. State auditors also flagged the province for unliquidated cash advances during the administration of then-Misamis Oriental Gov. Yevgeny Vincente Emano. He now serves as the congressional representative of the province’s second district.

In its 2021 audit report, erstwhile COA-10 Director Celso Vocal wrote on May 31, 2022, to Emano of the commission’s findings of the “existence of unsettled and dormant accounts in advances to special disbursing officers, to officers, and employees.”

As of December 31, 2021, the advances to special disbursing officers had a balance of P157,915,194.41. While the advances to officers and employees had a balance of P4,303,233.89.

“This affects the fair presentation of financial statements,” the 2021 audit report reads.

Back then, state auditors had already recommended to the provincial accountant to “intensify the monitoring of cash advances that have not been liquidated” and to liquidate the balances of December 31, 2021.