By Gerome Dalipe IV
The Commission on Audit (COA) flagged down about P29.2 million in unliquidated funds that the Iloilo Provincial Government transferred to various municipalities in the Province.
The state auditors, in their annual audit report for 2022, said the amount intended for Solid Waste Management (SWM) to various municipalities remained unliquidated as of December 31, 2022.
“The projects should have been fully implemented and the funds fully liquidated,” the auditors said.
Records showed that about P89.108 – million funds were transferred to various municipalities for their Solid Waste Management (SWM) projects from 2019 to 2021.
The Provincial Accounting Office and the Planning Development Office admitted that monitoring the numerous fund transfers is very challenging.
The officer in charge from the Accounting Office told auditors that they continuously conducted the monitoring of fund transfers together with the planning office including the issuance of demand letters for past due accounts.
The planning office conducted a site visit to the beneficiary municipalities and reminded them to submit the liquidation reports. He also reminded the personnel of the concerned agencies of the liquidation documents on every visit of the latter to their office.
During the exit conference, the focal person from the Provincial Planning and Development Office’s Monitoring Section said they are continually conducting weekly monitoring of all the fund transfers to the municipalities.
The towns are also reminded to stick to the provisions of the memorandum of agreement on the project implementation and liquidation of the fund transfers.
Likewise, the provincial accountant said the barangays find it hard to liquidate the fund transfers as some projects pertain to previous administrations, and the focal person from the planning office’s monitoring section pointed out that these were the fund transfers from 2015 to 2018.
The Capitol’s accounting office said that no additional fund transfers were granted unless the previous ones were fully liquidated or refunded.
In their audit report, the auditors said they recommended concerned offices and personnel to continuously monitor and analyze all fund transfers to the municipalities so that appropriate measures could be immediately undertaken.
