An order was then issued by presiding chairperson Councilor Adrian Barba to the City Council's secretariat in last Monday's session to facilitate the furnishing of such reports to all city councilors.
Barba was designated by City Vice Mayor Vicente Emano to preside over the 15th City Council's regular session last Monday.
Opposition leaders expect that the contents of such audit report will open a barrage of questions as to the financial status of the city, the transactions it entered into ending December 31, 2006 and whether or not the recommendations of the previous audit report were carried implemented or not.
It may even shed light as to the veracity of former city mayor now Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr.'s revelation that Emano has incurred a P1 billion loan with insufficient collateral from the Land Bank of the Philippines.
Sources said the move to formally furnish all the members of the City Council of copies of the COA Annual Audit Report 2006 truly certified as the true and correct copy of the same would be a first in this legislative body.
Emano took charge in 1998 and ended his term June this year, copies of the such audit report were not automatically furnished to the city councilors unlike their counterparts in the Provincial Board in the Provincial Government of Misamis Oriental.
During their regular session last Monday, Lao issued a special report regarding the controversial P49.7 million Barangay Telephone System Project as awarded by Emano's Administration to the Supplier Contractor and Network Telecommunication, Inc. (SCaNTel) last May 2003.
He said his special report is based on what was according to his sources was a copy of the COA Annual Audit Report 2006 findings.
Lao said it would have been best if the city council would be furnished copies of the entire COA Annual Audit Report 2006.
He stressed the importance that such copies of the audit reports should be certified as true and correct by the COA audit team.
Barba then issued an order that such copies of the COA Annual Audit Report 2006 be furnished to all members.
"For perusal of all the members of the City Council," he said during their session.
Later, Lao said there is a need for COA's certification as to show that these copies furnished to them are free from any "manipulations."
Emano for his part has repeatedly said he has not touched a single centavo of the city coffers when he held the reigns of government for nine consecutive years.
But COA has issued an Annual Audit Report questioning no less than eight transactions entered into by Emano ending Dec. 31 2005.
This include how the Property Plant and Equipment Account Balance totaling P2,306,054,954,952.59 "cannot be ascertained as to propriety and validity due to non-availability of subsidiary ledgers/real property cards."
Also, the "reasonableness of the repayment schemes" on the Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) projects in the total amount of P312,832,807.01.
This as the audit team said such "could not be determined due to the absence of complete documentations necessary for the review of the total investment on the project and the absence of formula in the determination of the margin profit."
Another COA in 2005 was on the Real Property Tax/Special Education Tax Receivable beginning balance for Calendar Year 2005 .
The team reported that the same was "overstated by P81,079,446.44 due to non-compliance of Section 20 of the New Government Accounting Manual, Volume I."
The fourth was on how Emano's administration "failed to completely reconcile the unadjusted prior year's reconciling items for Cash-in-Bank-Local Currency, Current Account reconciling items"
The audit team said this has amounted to a total of P73,165,004.73 in the agency's books of accounts affecting the accuracy, validity and reliability of cash in bank balances for the current year.
There were also the findings regarding the demolished structures representing the two Public Markets the Slaughterhouse as a result of the implementation of its redevelopment thru Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) arrangement.
This with a total market value of P20,640,262.09 were not dropped from the books of accounts in accordance with the provisions of COA Circular 92-386, the auditors said.
COA also reported on how the City General Services Office "failed to completely and promptly submit to the Office of the Audit Team Leader the necessary detailed engineering documents."
This "for timely review" and verification of the contract for the City Rural Telephone System (Telepono sa Barangay) Cagayan de oro City amounting to P50,000,000.00.
There was also the total amount of P5,475,676.20 representing a portion of the Accounts Payable - General Fund as of December 31, 2005.
The COA team said they found this "to be not in accordance with the definition provided under Section 141 of the Manual of the New Government Accounting System, Volume III."
Lastly, COA said in their 2005 Annual Audit Report that the City Accountant did not maintain special accounts in the General Fund nor had a complete set of subsidiary ledgers for public utilities/economic enterprises.
They said this was required under Sections 105-110, Vol. I of the NGAS Manual, thus, results of its operations could not be appropriately determined.
