Rama, Aides accountable Over P12M Unliquidated Funds

Mayor Michael Rama and three of his trusted aides at the Cebu City Hall still failed to liquidate over P12 million of government funds that were granted to them as cash advances for various projects in the city — some of the funds were released way back in 2011.

The records at the Cebu City Accounting Department showed that Rama still has P557,150 of unliquidated cash advance granted to him on May 31 and December 26, 2012.

Although Rama could not be reached for his comment as he is still enjoying his 22 days leave of absence, but his Chief of Staff Philipp Zafra explained that Rama’s name was just being used, but the actual user of the funds was Alvin Santillana of the Local Disaster Risk-Reduction Management Office.

Zafra explained that Santillana spent the money when he and several City Hall personnel and volunteers traveled to the typhoon-stricken areas in Mindanao to help the hundreds of victims by way of giving them drugs and medicines, and some other needs.

Santillana is still collating the documents to support the expenses that they had made during the more than one week of stay in Mindanao.

City Accountant Diwa Cuevas said Zafra himself has been granted with P4.5 million while Administrative Assistant Henry Tomalabcad was also given P2 million from the Intelligence Funds that is why both of them should liquidate the amount directly to the Commission on Audit (COA)-Manila.

When asked what were the expenses made out of the Intelligence Fund, Zafra refused to reveal, saying “Confidential na in nature kay police matters man ang gigastohan ana sir. Naa sab kang sir Henry ana kay bonded man mi. Both of us were able to liquidate na and these were submitted directly to Manila as a
requirement.”

Cuevas said she could not delete the accountability of both Zafra and Tomalabcad in their records until after the COA-Manila will inform her that their liquidation papers are already approved.

The city auditor said although Zafra had gave her the transmittal of her liquidation documents to Manila, but she will just wait for the approval of their liquidation.

“Gi-follow up na namo sigi ngadto sir pero tungod sa kadaghan nga mga LGU’s (local government units) dili sila makadali pag-review. What matters most is that we were able to submit our liquidation report to COA central office,” said Zafra.

But Cuevas had to withheld the salary of Carlos “Charlie” Reyes, another administrative assistant of the Office of the Mayor, from January until now because Reyes still failed to liquidate P3,993,200 even if the money was granted to to him on July 3 and August 7, 2012.

Reyes admitted that he was not able to collect his salaries since January until now because of the unliquidated cash advances. He was granted P4.687 million for the various sports activities, like the giving of prizes and tropies for the winners of basketball tournaments in the barangays.

Since last year, Reyes only submitted liquidation documents amounting to P693,800  that is why he still have an unliquidated balance of P3.9 million.

Another City Hall administrative assistant Virgilio Salaum also availed a cash advance of P1 million from the  trust fund last November 15, and until now the records showed that he still failed to liquidate the entire amount.

During the stint of then mayor Alvin Garcia some City Hall officials had been indicted of criminal cases before the Sandiganbayan, not because they have unliquidated cash advances, but they were blamed that some payroll paymasters managed to embezzle millions of government funds.

The state audit procedure provides that once an accountable officer fails to liquidate the government fund entrusted to her or him after the lapse of several months their salaries shall be withheld to compel them to settle their obligation.