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Thursday, June 15, 2006
City Engineer’s Office to be audited: Council
THE City Council is positive that the Commission on Audit (COA) regional office will conduct a fraud audit of the City Engineer’s Office (CEO).
Proponent of a resolution requesting the COA to do the same, City Councilor Perla Zulueta emphasized that the auditing body welcomes such request quoting her talk with the agency’s director.
Zulueta requested that the COA do a fraud audit of the engineer’s office after she has gathered pieces of evidence against the illegal transactions in securing building permits in the CEO.
After discussing it before the City Council, her resolution was then approved.
In the same resolution, she substantiated her claims of anomaly in the CEO by initially revealing that the office’s collections and its remittances to the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) do not match.
She said before the council that the treasurer’s office, in its collection report forwarded to her, showed that the CEO has collected only P584,268 for the first quarter of this year.
She also showed the written report of the CTO to the media.
Meanwhile, CEO Chief Marito Amatorio, in his report of CEO collections during the same period revealed the discrepancy of figures.
Amatorio reported and signed a document which stated that his office collected a total of P995,731 for the same quarter.
“How on earth the figures did not match?” Zulueta quipped.
She said that the CTO insisted the validity of its report while Amatorio said his was taken from the logbook of their collections.
In her resolution which the SP is sending to the COA after being signed by council members, she provided that the CEO was “observed to have had significantly low collections from January 2004 through the first quarter of 2006, more specifically from the payments of building electrical and occupancy permit fees despite the construction boom now prevailing in the city of Iloilo.”
Further she stated, “after his attention has been called on the matter, CEO chief Engr. Marito Amatorio submitted to the SP a summary of fees assessed during the preceding years by the CEO allegedly contained in their office logbook.”
“...the figures in Engineer Amatorio’s report do not match the actual collections by the City Treasurer’s Office from the said fees.”
“Whereas recent claims made by several sources on alleged irregularities happening inside the CEO allegedly involving its officials and employees have made an investigation on the issue imperative to help the Saugguniang Panlungsod craft ordinances that would prevent similar things from happening in the future.”
“Whereas, the Commission on Audit has both the personnel and expertise necessary to conduct an audit as technical as a fraud audit, which is considered vital if alleged irregularities at the CEO are to be proven.”
“...the Sangguniang Panlungsod has in its possession several documents that it is most willing to provide to COA to help it in the fraud audit that it may conduct on the CEO, which shall not be limited to its assessment of Building, Electrical and Occupancy Permit Fees, expanding the scope of the probe whenever and wherever necessary.”
(June 15, 2006 issue)
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