COA report irks Pavia mayor
Pavia Mayor Arcadio Gorriceta was irked over the disclosure of the 2005 Annual Audit Report made by the Commission on Audit (COA).
A 'demolition job,' said town exec 'diagnosed' of the media reports which he blamed on his political foes. And one concerted effort to discredit his administration, he further added as he went on air over Bombo Radyo's Zona Libre to clarify and give his reaction.
In same interview, Gorriceta tagged a town councilor as source of the COA documents supposedly leaked to media. Wednesday's news items carried the adverse findings on last year's expenditures of Pavia including refund sought by government auditors on hundreds of thousands worth of questionable and questioned transactions.
The News Today (TNT) obtained the COA report where expense of town officials starting off from the mayor to town engineer Ronilo Guillem were particularly addressed.
Alongside the duo, one top mayor's aide with P620,000 in cash advances was found liable for "misuse, abuse and possible loss of government funds." Same concern on the officials and employees behind the disbursement of the town's petty cash fund, the Local School Board and the town's Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).
The now controversial calendars formed part of the findings where COA questioned the deviation from the originally proposed plan that should have "Please pay your taxes promptly" reminder as the town's tax campaign. However, the COA as per ocular inspection found out no such message was included and instead, only the pictures of Mayor Gorriceta was seen with the town's Church and town hall.
Simply put, government auditors ruled, "The printing of 3,500 sets of 2005 calendars did not serve the purpose of the campaign."
There were other findings such as the whole page advertisements in the souvenir program of the Municipality of San Dionisio where again, Mayor Gorriceta and the other town officials had their photos published. For COA, such expense only catered to the publicity of the concerned municipal officials "rather than the municipality as haven of commerce."
"We recommend that the municipality stop the practice of incurring expenses for activities which are not for public purposes and will not redound to the benefit of the constituents of Pavia," the COA wrote in its report.
Further still, questions were also raised on the handling of infrastructure project of over P.6 million wherein payment were made out of the town's collections, one clear illegal practice deemed by the Commission as way of "exposing government funds to misuse, abuse and possible loss."
TNT also reported of the restrictions suggested by government auditors on phone bills incurred under the Mayor's Office. As practiced in the past year, COA discovered wanton use of the phone that was charged to the town's coffers.
Meantime, Engineer Guillem had to refund P31,460 gasoline expense paid for by the town with COA pointing out the municipality's thirteen government vehicles that should have been used and not his private service vehicle.