Creative fund management

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and his managers should be prepared to answer queries of auditors about creative fiscal management.

The City Council, as well, will have some explaining to do in their decison to approve P20,000 as “calamity assistance” to over 4,000 employees of the city government.

Officials, by the way, will happily benefit from the newly baptized yearend bonus as well according to the council resolution.

Officialy the P20,000 cash assistance is “assistance for employees who were affected by the Oct. 15 earthquake and the Nov. 8 supertyphoon Yolanda.”

Nobody is fooled by the label.

Cebu City was largely spared from supertyphoon Yolanda’s wrath. The Agustinian fathers had more to complain about with the damage to the belfry of the Sto. Niño Basilica than urban residents who felt fierce winds, but not the kind that brought the city to its knees during 1990’s typhoon Ruping.

Wasn’t the P20,000 cash gift one of many campaign promises of Rama during his reelection campaign.

Or more relevantly, how could City Hall’s yearend bonus be any less than their counterparts in the Provincial Capitol where Gov. Hilario Davide III just announced a P20,000 “incentive” bonus for his personnel.

It’s distressing to see city funds being spent for aid to beneficiaries not in real distress.

Wouldn’t it have been more honest to call the fund what it is – a yearend bonus, a Christmas gift, an incentive for being a civil servant still in the employ of the city government.

Why should a calamity be used to disguise an employee’s valid need for Christmas cheer?

The aid will be given across the board, whether or not an employee had his roof blown off, his limbs in need of bandages or band-aids, or his peace of mind traumatized by the sound of 250-kilometer winds.

The funds will not be sourced from the city’s calamity funds which are already programmed for another purpose, said City Budget Officer Nelfa Briones.

That’s a relief. Diverting funds intended for genuine disaster response and victims would be a crime.

All the more reason, we shouldn’t tolerate a mislabled expenditure.

The public will all find out months down the road what happens when the Commission on Audit (COA) does its routine review of expenditures, and takes a closer look at this aberration in Supplemental Budget 3.

“Even if I am covered, I am not a calamity victim,” said Councilor Margot Osmeña, chairperson of the council’s budget committee. Councilor Leah Japson joined her in waiving the P20,000 aid.

A disallowance is just waiting to be declared and the two women want no part in it.