CEO to undergo COA fraud audit
After hearing Ricardo Gumabong spill the beans on the many irregularities allegedly happening inside the City Engineer's Office (CEO), City Councilor Perla Zulueta is convinced there indeed is a syndicate operating out of the said office. In fact, so convinced was she that she would soon be asking the Commission on Audit (COA) to conduct a fraud audit on the CEO.
"If you could recall, late last year when we were deliberating on the 2006 budget, I have already called everyone's attention on the outrageously low collections of the City Engineer's Office. I specifically wondered out loud as to why the CEO's estimated and actual collections for the last three years or so remain in the vicinity of P1 million, especially with the construction boom in the city the last couple of years. Now, with Gumabong's expose, I already have a pretty good idea of what's really happening inside the said office," the lady councilor said in a recent interview with a local TV news program.
She said that immediately afterwards, she borrowed records from the City Treasurer's Office to ascertain where the problem lies, especially after getting wind of the fact that the figures that CEO chief Engr. Marito Amatorio provided to the Sangguniang Panlungsod representing their actual collections for the last two years don't match those in the records of the CTO.
"After a careful study of the records in the CTO's possession, we were already convinced that something is amiss at the CEO, although we can't really say for sure what it is, especially since the order of payment forms they issue to permit applicants are such that it would be difficult for someone to ascertain where the irregularity actually takes place," said Zulueta.
"In any case, to once and for all find out if indeed there are irregularities happening at the CEO, I have decided to request the COA for a fraud audit of the CEO. Hopefully, since COA personnel are much more knowledgeable in conducting audits of technical nature such as a fraud audit, we eventually would be able to get to the bottom of this," the Iron Lady of the City Council further said.
Zulueta said she has already asked the permission of Iloilo City mayor Jerry Treñas for the conduct of an audit on the CEO.
Meanwhile, the City Legal Office, on orders of Treñas, has started the investigation on the alleged extortion activities of Gumabong last Tuesday. Accordingly, Treñas has already returned Gumabong to his mother unit, the CEO, from the Special Services Unit so he could attend the hearings to be called by the CLO regarding the incident.