IT SEEMS like Tessie Camarillo will be back in the seat of in-charge of office of the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) today.
Emma Villarete’s designation as in-charge of office (ICO) expired yesterday. She was still in the office when Sun.Star Cebu checked on her yesterday afternoon.
The Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) acknowledged the receipt of the three candidates that Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama recommended to replace Villarete.
Rama recommended former city treasurer Ofelia Oliva, her son Regal Oliva, who is also the ICO treasurer of Mandaue City, and officer-in-charge of the accounting office Diwa Cuevas.
However, BLGF 7 Director Carmelane Tugas sent communication to Rama that the recommendation has been endorsed to the bureau’s Executive Director Salvador del Castillo.
“While waiting appropriate action from the bureau and/or Department of Finance, and in order to prevent disruption in the normal and (routine) operations of the local treasury office, the regular assistant city treasurer for operations thereat, may assume the duties and functions of the city treasurer, in caretaker capacity, upon expiration of designation of Villarete,” the communication from Tugas read.
Tugas based her directive on the local treasury operations manual.
While there was no mention of Camarillo, she is the current assistant city treasurer for operations.
She was also furnished with a copy of Tugas’s reply to Rama along with Villarete and del Castillo.
Designation
Camarillo was previously designated by BLGF to be the ICO of the CTO, but was edged out by Rama, who wanted Villarete, and appointed her through a memorandum.
It was a contentious time as the Council recognized Camarillo based on the BLGF directive, but Rama will only authorize Villarete on treasury matters.
Eventually, Villarete was appointed and her stint was extended to six months, which ended yesterday.
In an interview yesterday, Rama was not clear on whether he will be appointing his own caretaker of the CTO, whose stint is supposed to start today.
He just said that he received the letter from BLGF dated July 15.
Financial status
The Council wants the executive department to apprise them on the financial status of the City Government.
This is an offshoot of the Commission on Audit’s (COA) findings that the City has a potential cash overdraft of almost P1 billion.
In an audit observation memorandum, COA said the City has a P1,016,168,077 cash balance at the end of its operations last year, but it did not meet the current obligations and trust liabilities that amount to P1,981,726,196.
It excluded the intra-agency payables of P2.9 billion, creating a deficit reaching P965,558,119.
Aside from the overdraft, Wenceslao wants the local finance committee to explain why it had not paid the pharmacies that are part of the City’s medical and hospital program.
