COA says ex Manila Mayor Erap Estrada left P141 Million unliquidated transactions

Ex Manila Mayor Erap Estrada photo from Interaksyon (ctto)

MANILA, Philippines — Former Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada had recently discovered by Commission on Audit (COA) in an initial report that it had more than P140 million worth of unresolved transactions and unliquidated cash advances during his last three months in office as city mayor.

Per COA’s initial report, a total of P141,021,321.31 notices from Suspension, Disallowances and Charges found in the audit of various transactions  of the City of Manila from April 1 up to his last day of office as mayor last June 30 this year remained unresolved.

“We think some people have some explaining to do,” Manila Public Information Office chief, Julius Leonen, told reporters on Tuesday.

Leonen presented to the reporters the financial report from COA, some P67,165,880.48 in disallowances by the has been made by the Estrada administration.

The COA also said the Estrada administration had P42,538,364.47 in suspensions and P31,317,076.36 in charges based on the breakdown.

According to Inquirer, they had reached out to Estrada to air his side but has yet to reply as of this writing.

From a previous report, COA also revealed that from 2018 financial report, Erap Estrada left the city some P4.3 billion cash deficit.

The city government’s payables and obligations totaled P9.05 billion as of Dec. 31, 2018. It had only P5.36 billion in its general funds, or a shortfall of P3.69 billion, according to the Commission on Audit (COA).

Aside from the P3.69-billion deficit, the report said the city had incurred more liabilities because it borrowed from other city funds, such as the development fund and intra-agency accounts that were supposed to be for specific projects.

Other liabilities include unrecorded disbursements (P345.94 million), borrowings from unimplemented projects (P95.41 million), borrowings from savings from 20 percent of the city’s development fund (P18.51 million), and the net difference of intra-agency accounts (P247.15 million).

These totaled to the city’s total insufficient cash for the year was P4.39 billion. The current Manila’s City Accountant and its City Budget Officer are now looking into this report.

Estrada earlier was shocked on the COA report saying that he actually left around P10.3 billion in the Manila City Treasury when he left his office in June 30 to settle the city's P9 billion payables.

Source: Inquirer