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Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Ex-officials: Millions lost in cash flow snafu
By Lizanilla J. Amarga
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- A former mayor of this city said he is convinced that cash balances in the past five years could no longer be reconciled resulting in losses of millions of pesos to City Hall.
Pablo Magtajas said the amount involved cash advances made but not liquidated by Mayor Vicente and his cohorts from 1998 to 2003.
"It is next to impossible for those cash balances to ever be reconciled," he told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro Tuesday.
Former vice mayor Antonio Soriano, former city councilor Dr. Bob Ocio and CPA lawyer Bobby Goking echoed the same views in separate interviews with this paper. They believed the financial mess discovered by government auditors was done deliberately to hide the mayor's bogus deals.
Mindanao auditors that conducted the audit on 2004 transactions of the Cagayan de Oro City Hall said they were having problems reconciling disbursements amounting to P83 million.
They noted that for the last five years the "reliability and validity of cash advances" were questionable because City Hall's Accounting Department "failed to prepare the required bank reconciliation statements."
The five years when cash balances were not reconciled ran from 1998 to 2003, the same period when Emano took over as mayor of Cagayan de Oro City.
Magtajas claimed to have left Emano P500 million in savings in 1998 but the Commission on Audit in Mindanao reported that the City Government has P1.113 billion in loans and liabilities.
Magtajas, who served as city mayor for over 15 years since Martial Law to June 1998, said he is confused as to why the city auditor of Cagayan de Oro allowed the irregularity to continue for five years.
"For if we don't know the actual cash balance, we will also not know the cash advances made and whether those have been liquidated already," he said, adding that the City Government probably lost millions.
The former mayor said he could not figure out why Emano's administration is having a hard time reconciling its cash balances for the past five years.
"Why has it failed to reconcile the cash balances for five years when this could have been easily done if City Hall would just heed the recommendations of the auditor during the exit conference," he said.
Magtajas said he always made it a point to talk with then accounting department head Zenaida Lago when it came to the financial health of the City Government.
He said they even made sure that they complied with the provisions of Republic Act 7160, otherwise known as the Local Government Code of 1991, when it came to posting in conspicuous places and publishing the financial statements of the city in local newspapers.
"And also in compliance with RA 7160, I also report to the people the financial health of the city in my state of the city address," he said, adding that all these are required by law but Emano has so far failed to abide by these provisions.
Soriano, for his part, said it would be impossible for City Hall to work back five years to reconcile the balances.
"Those cash balances will never be reconciled properly," he said. He also said Emano will probably come out of it not facing any charges as the opposition does not have the funds to bankroll a protracted litigation.
Goking explained that cash balances could be reconciled in many ways.
It could be done daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly but that Emano failed to do this.
Goking believed that COA Mindanao possibly did not verify with the banks to have the records reconciled.
"This non-reconciliation for five years is deliberately done so that they will not be caught with their bogus deals. Because auditing is to make things simple but what Emano's administration is doing is making everything complicated to hide their illegal transactions," he added. (Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro/Sunnex)
(September 21, 2005 issue)
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