‘COA Report Not so Accurate’ Poblete Says

The Cebu City government’s Local Development Fund (LDF) allocation was only a little over P200 million last year but Cebu City Acting Mayor Edgardo Labella said the city implemented the identified infrastructure projects worth P875 million even if it is already beyond the 20 percent LDF budget.

City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete said the administration of Mayor Michael Rama has decided to implement those identified infrastructure projects even if the city only received more than P200 million LDF allocations out of the P1 Billion Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) or the city’s share from the national government.

In the Annual Audit Report (AAR) of the city’s operational and financial records, the Commission on Audit (COA) said that of the P875 million cost  of  infrastructure projects charged against the LDF, only P407.5 million are implemented by the city as of last December 31.

But in Tuesday’s press conference, Cebu City Acting Mayor Edgardo Labella said aside from the projects worth P407.5 million, the city continued to implement the other infrastructure projects.

“Mga 78 percent na sa tanang infrastructure projects ang na-implemented. Wala man ta magsalig sa IRA nga magamit pagpatuman sa atong giplano nga projects kay duna man g’yud ta’y atong pundo nga magamit para ana,” said Poblete, who also heads the City Planning and Development Office.

According to Poblete, some of the infrastructure projects were implemented through the barangays that were also given millions of pesos in financial aid.

Poblete said the COA report was not so accurate because the state auditors just based their audit on existing financial documents but there are other projects where the contractors have yet to submit their billings.

COA said the financial records of the city shows that the city had only spent P407.5 million for the various local development projects leaving a similar amount of projects that are not implemented.