Comelec’s unliquidated cash advances down to P131 million — Jimenez

The Commission on Elections' (Comelec) unliquidated cash advances are down to P131 million as of July 31 this year, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said Wednesday.

Jimenez was responding to the Commission on Audit (COA)’s letter to Comelec tasking the poll body to immediately settle P1.63 billion worth of unliquidated cash advance as of September 2018.

Of the P1.63 billion, P1.4 billion were disbursed to Special Disbursing Officers while P179 million went to Comelec officers and employees.

“It is actually down to P131 million. I don’t know why they reported an older figure, but as of July 31, our unliquidated cash advances stood at P131 million,” Jimenez said in a chance interview.

“It is a matter of bank reconciliations kasi, and usually pag nagre-reconcile you are talking about P40 million,P50 million, malalaki, bulto-bulto ang mga transaction. Nag-clarify na ang finance director namin kanina na as of July 31, nasa P131 million ang unliquidated namin which is a far cry from the P1.6 billion that was reported,” Jimenez added.

Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon, in a separate interview, confirmed the figure given by Jimenez and added that the cash advances are not misused and will be liquidated.

“The amount is no longer accurate because there has been liquidation since the report was done by COA. We are happy that our Finance department is working really hard, because that amount used to be more than P5 billion,” Guanzon told reporters.

“These travel cash advances of commissioners, regional directors, will be settled in due time. This is not a case of malversation,” Guanzon added.

Jimenez, however, said that the poll body won’t write the state auditors anymore for formal clarification.

“It is COA’s job to call our attention to things like that. They [just] must have gotten their hands on an older report,” Jimenez added. — BM, GMA News