City Hall failed to submit list of ongoing projects in 2018 – COA

By: Gerome Dalipe

THE Commission on Audit (COA) scored the Iloilo City Government for failure to submit all of its ongoing projects, programs, and activities in 2018.

The government auditors made the observation in their annual audit report for 2018.

Each government unit is mandated to submit the list of the projects, programs, and activities in each year, pursuant to COA Circular 2013-004.

Every government unit is also obliged to inform the government auditors 10 days after the award of the infrastructure project, or before the start of the program activity.

Appropriate project signboards or public notices should also be posted for the auditors to efficiently inspect and monitor the project.

In their report, the auditors asked the city engineer to comply with the provisions of the COA Circular 2013-004 dated Jan. 30, 2013.

Likewise, the auditors also noted the City Government failed to post its transactions to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) account.

This resulted in either un-reconciled account balances amounting to P742,702.44;  over/under remittances of P793,474.10; and non-remittance of prior years’ balances amounting to P5,825,204.23.

Such practice violated the provisions of the Revenue Regulations 02-98 and Section 251 of the National Internal Revenue Code Of 1997, thus affecting the reliability and accuracy of the account balance.

The state auditors directed the city accountant to review and reconcile the withheld taxes and the remittances to ensure that the correct amount of taxes are withheld and remitted to the BIR.

The city accountant was also advised to review or analyze thoroughly the journal entries made before posting to ensure accurate recording of transactions and reliable balances of accounts.