COA reprimands Manila gov't for P422-M unreleased tax shares of barangays

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit has called out the Manila City government over the unreleased real property tax (RPT) shares of its 896 barangays amounting P421.847 million, which was due to them in 2017.

In an annual audit report posted on its website on July 13, the COA said that a total of P1.374 billion RPT shares was due to the barangays in Manila, comprising of P480.12-million balance for the last quarter of 2016 and P893.951 million for the first and second quarters of 2017.

The COA said the audit team's review of the city government's Journal Entry Vouchers (JEVs) and Reports of Checks Issued (RCI) revealed that a total of only P952.224 million has been released to the barangays as of end of 2017.

The state auditors noted that the release of the P952.224-million shares was delayed by 56 to 93 days in violation of Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code of the Philippines.

The COA pointed out that under Section 271(d) of RA 7160, the 30-percent RPT shares of each barangay in a city “shall be released, without need of any further action, directly to the barangay treasurer on a quarterly basis within five days after the end of each quarter and shall not be subject to any lien or holdback for whatever purpose.”

“Considering the limited resources of the barangays, the delayed/untimely releases of their RPT shares deprived them of the necessary funds to finance their operations and PPAs (programs, projects and activities),” the COA told the Manila government.

Furthermore, the audit team also noted that 27 of the barangays included in the city government's RPT shares distribution list appeared to be “non-existent”.

The COA pointed out that based on the “Liga Ng Mga Barangay Fact Book, Copyright 2012” the city of Manila only has 896 barangays, and yet, the in its distribution list, it identified 923 barangays as recipients of the tax shares, hence “appearing that there were 27 non-existent barangays of the City.”

The COA said the unreleased shares due to these 27 “non-existent barangays” amount to P108.733 million.

“Consequently, the RPT shares allocated to the 27 non-existent barangays resulted in the understatement of the corresponding shares that should be distributed to only 896 barangays of the City,” the COA said.

The audit body recommended to the city government to direct its Office of the City Treasurer to “initiate the regular/timely release of the quarterly RPT shares for all the barangays of the City pursuant to Section 271(d) of R.A. 7160.”

The COA also recommended an investigation on the allocations of RPT shares to the 27 non-existent barangays and “determine the particular barangays where the non-existent/abolished barangays were merged.” — Elizabeth Marcelo