City implements 14 COA notes

CEBU, Philippines – The Talisay City government fully implemented only 14 out of 60 recommendations that the Commission on Audit made to correct the deficiencies it noted in the city's transactions and operations in the previous years.

In their annual audit report for 2014, the COA incorporated the status of implementation of prior years and audit recommendations.

For 2014, COA said Talisay City government implemented 14 recommendations while 18 have not been fully implemented. Some 28 have been partially acted.

Among the recommendations that were fully implemented is for the city health office to no longer distribute health cards to indigent beneficiaries who are also PhilHealth members.

In its 2013 report, COA called the attention of the city government after it incurred more than P7 million in unpaid obligations to the city's district hospital due to its health card program.  Government state auditors found out that city government incurred unpaid obligations of P7,026,980.75 because of the program.

Another fully implemented COA recommendation was the immediate stoppage to the paying of honorarium to Comelec election registrar and senior citizens, and for the procurement of supplies and materials to be already centralized and not done by department.

The city government also fully implemented demanding refunds from some city officials led by then mayor Socrates Fernandez for excesses in the Representation and Transportation Allowances (RATA) that they collected during travels in 2010.

The refunds were deducted from their salaries.

The city also corrected the hiring of 91 security guards of Blackpearl Security Agency as job order employees by instead directly hiring their services.