The Commission on Audit has questioned the Davao City government’s P353-million cash advance in its 2015 payroll.
In its Aug. 26 audit report, the state auditors challenged the city government’s use of the cash advance system to distribute the wages and other benefits of non-permanent employees in 2015.
CoA said the scheme to pay workers’ salaries through cash advance was not advisable, particularly when many people were involved since this was time-consuming and would only expose public funds to risks, loss or fraud.
“The system of paying employees’ salaries in cash is an outdated and inefficient process…[due] to significant loss of man-hours for the paymasters, who draw cash advances and release them to individual payees. Likewise, there is also a risk of loss or misapplication of funds by the disbursing officers, who handle large amounts of cash at any given time,” the audit report read.
Based on the breakdown of the number of people in Davao City’s 2015 payroll presented by the city administration, there were 2,744 plantilla personnel augmented by 4,760 hired on job order basis and another 5,610 on contract of service.
A 2015 summary of the cash advances to “disbursing officers” showed that P20.445 million had been drawn in January, P9.575 million in February, P13.336 million in March, P31.713 million in April, P29.821 million in May, P40.85 million in June, P49.622 million in July, P35.877 million in August, P19.061 in September, P20.149 in October, P38.508 million in November, and P44.462 million in December.
The city government maintained there was nothing irregular in the employment of job order and contractual employees.
Based on Davao City’s 2015 financial statements, the salaries of job order and contract of service hires were derived from the city government’s maintenance and other operating expenses.
