MANY HEADS ROLL

THE regional office of the Commission on Audit (COA) and the office of the city auditor have been officially notified by the office of the city mayor to probe and explain in a special audit why several irregularities committed by past city administration are missing in the latest city auditor’s report, among these, the existence of discovered ‘flying’, ‘ghost’ and ‘dummy’ scholars that defrauded the coffers of the city of millions of pesos in three years.

In her “Kapehan Talakayan, at Balitaan” program on Wednesday, Mayor Belen Fernandez identified three other discovered anomalies that were not cited in the 2022 report of City Auditor Michael Basa: the anomalous advance purchase of two undelivered motorboats at more than P999,000 in 2020; the abandoned reconstruction of the Malimgas Public Market and the purchase of P18 million worth of missing CCTVs that were not linked to the Public Alert Response Monitoring Center (PARMC).

Fernandez said her office wrote to both COA offices to investigate the discovered irregular transactions that transpired under the past city administration because these were not investigated nor mentioned in the city auditor’s report. She said the special audit should identify the city officials behind the irregularities so proper charges can be filed against them before the office of the Ombudsman.

Meanwhile, the mayor said the process for the investigation of the deleted computers files in the Public Order and Safety Office (POSO), One Stop Shop Business Center (OSBC) and other offices is already being discussed with the National Bureau of Investigation.

She said she could not understand why the city audit didn’t find anything wrong with the list of scholars that received grants but did not include their respective addresses, their cellphone numbers as well as other data including the schools where they were enrolled in  and the courses they were taking being accountable as beneficiaries.

The complete data on the scholars would have ensured that no fund of the city was misspent on unqualified scholars.

Off hand, the mayor said that the present scholarship committee discovered 193 scholars that were either deemed ‘flying’, ‘ghost’ or ‘dummy’ scholars and or/with incomplete grades.

Fernandez also asked the city auditor to also release its much delayed Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM) on the expenditures and revenues of the Dagupan government under the Lim administration so the Fernandez administration can have a true picture of the city’s finances.

She cited how an advance payment for undelivered motorboats could be authorized by the budget officer and city accountant knowing the items were not delivered but were made to appear by the city auditor that the transaction was above board.

Fernandez lamented that she could not also act on the needed improvements in Malimgas Public without AOM of the city auditor that should list the contractor’s omissions and failure to comply with terms of contract.

She also pointed to the purchase of the missing P18 million worth of CCTVs by the past city administration tainted with irregularities but certified correct by Robert Erfe- Mejia based on his signatures on the delivery documents, only to find out that the money released as payment never reached the supplier. Worse, she said the units were not linked to PARMC as claimed.

“We will write more letters to COA because irregularities in the past are now surfacing one by one,”” Fernandez said. (Leonardo Micua)

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