BAGUIO CITY – The city government was never remised in the handling of movable properties and equipment but there were various supervening factors that have resulted to the existence of some irreconcilable properties over the past several decades.
In their letter to Margie D. Bongait, State Auditor IV and Audit Team Leader of Baguio City, City Genral Services Officer Romeo D. Concio and City Accountant Antonio L. Tabin cited among the factors that have caused the presence of irreconcilable properties and equipment of the city were the transfer of records from the city treasury to the city accounting and city general services office, the adoption of electronic new government accounting system on October 2006 wherein no record of accountable items under the items for reconciliation were turned over, the subsidiary6 ledger for the reconciliation were not in the records of the city accounting, thus, the difficulty of identifying in the field for the purpose of the physical count and for three years since 2013, their offices had been conducting physical inventory and that all city-owned properties were properly and appropriately included in their report of count of properties, plant and equipment.
It can be recalled that prior to the implementation of the provisions of the Local government code, the city general services office, the city accounting office and the city treasury office were all under the same office.
The concerned city officials recommended to the members of the audit team for the eventual dropping of the account “for reconciliation” pertaining to movable properties specifically office equipment and other machineries and equipment for both general fund and special education fund in order to set the correct record as far as the general ledger and physical inventory is concerned.
“It is not true that there are missing city owned properties and equipment. It just so happened that there were supervening events that transpired over the past several decades that resulted to the occurrence of some irreconcilable items which could be given the appropriate remedies,” Concio stressed.
According to the two officials, their offices could not undertake physical inventory of the reported missing properties and equipment due to the unavailability of details nor supporting documents as their basis for physical count.
However, the asserted that they have accounted city-owned properties which are physically present in the field, and these were forwarded to the city accounting office and were already recorded in their books, thus, it contributed in the significant reduction of the account for reconciliation last year.
Further, the city officials underscored it is worthy to note that the amount of P189 million indicated for reconciliation has not appropriate details in the books of accounts as basis for us to verify in the field and that material efforts had been exerted and this is the third year they had been dealing with the said issue.
For this year, the concerned department heads assured that their offices will give more time on the physical verification of land and building assets under the city’s special education fund as this have material composition and that the said activity is now being currently undertaken in coordination with the city assessor’s office. By Dexter A. See