Saturday, August 04, 2007 COA raps Lapu officials who ‘failed to use’ P22M donations
LAPU-LAPU City officials have been told to implement the projects funded out of financial assistance from Malaca-ñang and other local government units, so as not to deprive the people of the projects’ benefits.
The City has accumulated P22.02 million in financial assistance from other government units and congressional funds because it failed to implement the programs and projects for which these funds were intended.
In its report for 2006, the Commission on Audit (COA) commented that in failing to implement the projects, Lapu-Lapu City “may run the risk that the amount provided will no longer be sufficient to finance the project or program considering the unstable economic situation.”
The COA also recommended that the mayor submit status reports to the funding agency, for monitoring.
The auditors noted that Lapu-Lapu City has released P6.8 million as financial assistance to different nongovernment organizations (NGOs), national government agencies and other government organizations without following COA guidelines.
As a result, the accountability of the recipients has not been established.
The release of these amounts was only covered with resolutions authorizing the financial assistance, as well as receipts of the concerned payees, without details on how or what projects were to be implemented.
“Because of the absence of the required documents in the release of funds, the concerned NGOs were not informed of their accountability over the fund assistance,” COA said in its report. This raises the risk that the funds may not get liquidated.
The COA told the mayor and other officials to be “responsible” for the granting and releasing of financial assistance and to observe strictly the commission’s guidelines so that both the local government and NGOs can be held accountable for the funds. (MBG)
