COA questions P200T town gave to DepEd official

CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Audit has questioned Santander town’s granting of cash assistance to a Department of Education acting district supervisor in the amount of P203,021 for the meals of the athletes of a provincial meet.

In its review of the town’s 2014 financial operations, COA discovered that Santander granted a special cash advance to DepEd acting district supervisor Celieta Yabo, who is not an employee of the local government.

The P203,021 amount released to Yabo last December 22, 2014 was for the meals of coaches and athletes, among others, who participated in the Provincial Sports Meet in Argao last January.

The budget was for three school administrators, one district supervisor, eight school heads, 110 athletes, 24 coaches, 11 kitchen staff and four helpers.

It was the mayor who authorized Yabo to draw the cash advance from the town’s special education fund, which COA said is a violation of Paragraph 3.2 of COA Circular No. 97-002, which says “special cash advances are those granted on the explicit authority of the Head of Agency only to duly designated disbursing officers or employees for other legally authorized purposes.”

It was also found out that Yabo has an outstanding cash advance of P3,490.90 which remained unliquidated when COA made an audit last December 31, 2014.

COA said this is in violation of Section 4.1.2 of the same circular which states that “no additional cash advances shall be allowed to any official or employee unless previous cash advance given to him is first settled or a proper accounting thereof is made.”

“Moreover, the sports activity was conducted in January 2015 but as of this writing the concerned DepEd official has not yet liquidated (her) cash advances,” COA said.

COA directed the town officials to order the DepEd official to liquidate the mentioned cash advances and to “discontinue” the practice of granting cash advances to unauthorized persons. — (FREEMAN)