City Hall disbursing officers told to keep cashbooks

By: Gerome Dalipe

State auditors urged the Iloilo City Hall’s petty cash disbursing officers to keep cashbooks on their transactions.

This, after the Commission on Audit (COA) discovered the cashbooks were not maintained by the disbursing officers in 2018.

The practice prevented the auditors from detecting any misuse or misappropriation of cash disbursements, the auditors said.

Chapter II of the Revised Cash Examination Manual requires the accountable officer to enter in his cashbooks all valid transactions and adjustments up to the time of the count.

Likewise, the accountable officer is required to certify immediately the last entry in the cashbook that all cash and depository transactions have been correctly and completely recorded in the cash book.

During the examination of the cash and accounts, the auditors said that expenses, disbursements, replenishments, and petty cash fund were not maintained by six petty cash disbursing officers for period Jan 1, 2018 to Dec 31, 2018.

“Failure to maintain cashbook for petty cash fund precludes the reconciliation of the cashbook balance with the cash on hand of the petty cash fund custodian, thus, exposes cash to risk of loss through theft and/or misappropriation,” read the COA report.

Likewise, the auditors said that cashbooks could help in the monitoring of expenses and in determining of all government funds being handled by accountable officers.

In the report the auditors asked the City Hall to require the petty cash disbursing

officers or custodians to maintain cashbooks as required under Chapters II and III of the Revised Cash Examination Manual.