City Hall’s P59.43M cash in bank ‘doubtful’

By: Gerome Dalipe

STATE auditors doubted the accuracy of the cash in bank of the Iloilo City Government amounting to P59.43-million.

That’s because the books reconciling items reflected in the City’s monthly bank reconciliation statements remained unadjusted and not recorded in the books of accounts at the end of 2018.

Thus, it rendered the accuracy of the City’s cash in a bank account “doubtful” and in contrast to Section 74 of Presidential Decree 1445, otherwise known as the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines.

Likewise, the City Government failed to submit its monthly bank reconciliation statement on time, which violated the Commission on Audit (COA) Circular 96-011 dated Oct. 2, 1996.

This could have prevented the auditorial review and early detection of any errors or irregularities, the auditors said.

In their 2018 annual audit report, the auditors asked the city accountant to address the cause of delay in the preparation and submission of its monthly bank reconciliation statement.

The City is urged to avail the online banking services of the Development Bank of the Philippines and the viewing of Land Bank of the Philippines transactions.

The city accountant was also tasked to make the proper adjustment on journal entries by prioritizing the adjustments starting from the reconciling items for fiscal years 2016 to 2017.

The auditors also urged the city accountant to work on a time table to adjust prior years’ reconciling items.

This is to ensure accurate balances of cash in bank accounts and the fair presentation of financial reports.

Likewise, the City’s petty cash disbursing officers did not maintain cashbooks to record petty cash fund transactions.

Thus, the City could not immediately determine or detect any misuse or misappropriation of cash transactions.

The auditors directed the City Government to require the petty cash disbursing officers to maintain cashbooks pursuant to provisions of the Revised Cash Examination Manual.