Friday, August 19, 2005
Fund realignments aboveboard: City
By Garry Cabotaje
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Two Talisay City Hall department heads yesterday defended the realignment of funds for the City’s P26.9-million computerization program, stressing that it was legal and aboveboard.
City Accountant Viluzminda Villarante and Budget Officer Edgar Mabunay said they had consulted the Commission on Audit (COA) before some funds were realigned.
Villarante, who was called to an executive session with Mayor Socrates Fernandez and the city councilors yesterday, also defended Rep. Eduardo “Eddiegul” Gullas, former Talisay mayor.
The computerization project, which has systematized the City’s tax collection and financial transaction procedures, started during the administration of Gullas.
Villarente said that Gullas would not issue the executive orders for fund realignments without the unanimous endorsement from the City’s legal, financial, accounting and budget departments.
No ghost project
“We believed that everything was aboveboard. We are not afraid to explain our side because the computerization program is existing and it is not a ghost project. It indeed helps boost the City’s income,” Villarante added.
Questions on the computerization project were raised after the COA disclosed that last year’s purchase of information technology equipment and software lacked legislative authority.
While the project cost P26.9 million, the report of State Auditor IV Elsa Eguia said the City’s annual budget had only P2.4 million appropriation for the project, leaving a balance of P24.588 million.
The mayor issued executive orders, realigning P19.7 million, to meet the project’s financial requirement.
However, the move did not conform to the implementing rules and regulations of the 1991 Local Government Code, the COA said.
Villarante, however, cited Section 321 of the code, which states that “no supplemental budget shall be enacted by the sanggunian when no funds are available from new revenue sources.”
Executive orders
Since there were no revenue sources, the City resorted to the issuance of executive orders, to realign the funds from “unimplemented and completed projects.”
Villarante supported the position of Mayor Socrates Fernandez on the issue.
While Section 336 of the code prohibits the transfer of appropriations from “one item to another,” Fernandez had said the succeeding sentence in the same provision states that “the local chief executive or the presiding officer of the sanggunian may, by ordinance, be authorized to augment any item in the approved annual budget for their offices from savings in other items within the same class of their appropriations.”
Mabunay said they have already fully answered COA’s memorandum, adding that the matter was not even discussed during their exit briefing with Eguia’s audit team.
COA 7 legal department has yet to issue an opinion on whether or not a mayor can issue an executive order to realign government funds.
(August 19, 2005 issue)
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