COA seeks refund of P3.3 million cash gifts
ILLEGAL GRANTS
THE Commission on Audit (COA) has asked the Dagupan City government to demand from consultants and job order employees (JOEs) the return of the cash gifts in the amount of P3.3 million distributed to them in 2012 during the administration of then Mayor Benjamin S Lim.
This was revealed by City Budget Officer Luz de Guzman during the deliberation of the sanggunian panlungsod on the 2015 budget last week.
She cited the directive of the city auditor in response to the query by Minority Leader Redford Erfe-Mejia why the practice of distributing cash gifts to JOEs and consultants was stopped in 2013 and 2014 by the Fernandez administration and only regular employees were given Productivity Enhancement Incentives (PEI).
De Guzman specifically cited the Audit Observation Memorandum of City Auditor Criselda Austria pointing out that the cash gifts of P3.3 million granted to 743 technical consultants, JOEs and the like was in violation of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Circular 2010-01 dated April 28, 2010 and Section 3.1 of COA Circular 2012-003 dated October 29, 2012.
Then she went on to cite the demand of the city auditor that the cash gifts distributed in 2012 be returned to the city government since these were illegally paid out.
Under the DBM Circular, “those hired without employer-employee relationships and paid from non-personnel services appropriation budgets, such technical, consultants and JOEs are excluded from the grant of year -end bonus and cash gifts.”
Given the advice of the auditor, De Guzman said Mayor Belen Fernandez decided to increase hiring rate of JOEs by P500 instead to compensate for the loss of cash gifts.
And in compliance with the auditor’s directive, the city government has been sending demand letters to those who were illegally given cash gifts to return the amounts they received and that failing to comply, they will be charged before the ombdusman.
After the deliberation, the councilors approved the 2015 budget. (LVM)
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