City official on COA notice: Anything new?

CEBU, Philippines – The legal officer of Mandaue City described the Commission on Audit’s notice of disallowance on cash incentives totaling P21.6 million as “nothing new.”

Giovanni Tianero said the city government will appeal within six months on the notice believing that there was nothing illegal when it granted cash incentives to non-regular employees.

Tianero said since 2010 to 2012, the city has been receiving notice of disallowance from COA, and all their appeals are still pending.

During interview with reporters, Tianero declined to tackle the justification they gave COA in their appeals because they might be held liable for “sub judice” as the cases are still being considered in court.

Another source, who also refused to be named, told The FREEMAN the city is also confident it can justify the notice of disallowance after he also came to from COA’s official website that the commission has came out with a resolution in November 20, 2013 which also grants the payment of year-end bonus and cash incentives to its job order employees.

Earlier, COA has disallowed over P21 million cash incentives granted by the Mandaue City government to job order employees, clean and green workers, and barangay health nutrition workers in 2013.

The notice of disallowance was received by Mayor Jonas Cortes and other city officials, including members of the City Council, on February 4.

The city officials are given six months from receipt of the notice to make an appeal, otherwise it will become final and executory.

Councilor Diosdado Suico, majority floor leader, said the notice of disallowance will be tackled by the City Council.

He said they will study what legal remedy to take to prevent the recipients from returning the P21.59 million cash incentives.

The City Council passed in November 2013 the City Ordinance No. 13-2013-872 granting P10,000 additional cash incentives to job order employees and P5,000 for clean and green, and barangay health and nutrition workers.

The state audit agency said the city government made a mistake in granting the cash incentives as it circumvented the job order agreements between the mayor and the workers.

Nothing was stipulated in the agreement that job order workers would receive additional cash incentives other than the payment for the services rendered.