COA: City's P24M unrecorded.

The City's books in 2018 did not reflect deposits of around P24.68 million and withdrawals of around P55,000, according to the Commission on Audit (COA).

Apparently, the city was still missing some original copies of source documents while also blaming a system error from its digital service provider.

In its audit for 2018, the COA recommended that the CTO 'immediately transmit all the required source documents and/or paid vouchers to CAO to facilitate the recording of transactions.'

The COA added the city should 'direct its City Treasurer to always observe timeliness and promptly address the cause/s of any delay because delay in the of documents to the City Accountant also delays the recording process, hence, affecting the completeness and accuracy of the CDG financial reports, particularly the balances of cash in bank and related income and expense accounts.'

Moreover, the city should 'enjoin the City Accountant to constantly follow-up with the City Treasurer's Office and the bank regarding unrecorded transactions.'

In a communication between the City Accountant and City Treasurer, the CTO said it would direct its divisions to submit all needed documents.

The CTO added it had also directed divisions with pending transactions to submit original receipts.

With a system error as part of the reasons cited by the local government, 'the City Treasurer is making constant follow-up with Amellar Solutions, the system provider with the representation from the CTO-System Network Management pertaining the unreported Real Property Tax payments due to system error/glitch.'

Meanwhile, at the bank level for some of the current accounts, there were some transactions that were not recorded in the books.

According to the COA, 'The bank reconciliation statements (BRS) as of June 30, 2018 showed that deposits of P24,680,229.03 and withdrawals of P55,041.01 were unrecorded due to non-submission by the City Treasurer's Office of source documents to the City Accountant's Office, and system error.'

The COA said that this affected the 'completeness, accuracy and validity of recorded cash in bank, income and expenses in the books of accounts.'

A COA memo in 1992 requires the City Accountant to prepare the BRS and prepare the entries for discrepancy or errors after analysis and verification.

'It was observed that the BRS were regularly prepared but reconciling items were not corrected/adjusted immediately pending verification with the City Treasurer's Office (CTO) by the City Accountant's Office (CAO),' the COA said.

The City Accountant, according to the report, sent several letter requests to submit official receipts reported by liquidating officers for unrecorded deposits as well as the original paid vouchers of the unrecorded withdrawals.

'But the CTO was not able to submit mostly of the requested documents until now,' the COA said in its report as of December 2018.

For one account, around P16 million in deposits and around P55,000 in withdrawals were considered unrecorded in the period of the report.

From the deposits, around P36,000 and around P218,900 were not recorded in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

'Also, as per CTO's letter last April 24, 2018, deposits totaling P12,598,276.08 were not recorded due to system error,' the COA said.

In some of the city's trust funds, some deposits were still not recorded pending verification with the City Treasurer.

Because of a system error, around P7.7 million in deposits to the Special Education Fund, coming from the P8.232 million total deposits, were still not recorded because of the system error.

The deposits amounting to P5.3 million that have still been unrecorded since 2017, while there were disbursements amounting to P54,125 still unrecorded as of December 31, 2018.

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Publication:	Mindanao Times (Mindanao, Philippines)
Date:	Jul 30, 2019
Words:	708
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