CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The city council will investigate the Commission on Audit’s report about the P124-million worth of uncollected revenues, fees, and charges from all public market stalls in Cagayan de Oro from the calendar year of 2022 and prior years.
The COA’s Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM) dated Feb. 20, 2023, was brought up through Councilor Jose Pepe Abbu Jr.’s special report in the city council’s session on Tuesday, May 2.
"When I went through the report, Mr. Chair, I was shocked and perplexed with what I read," said Abbu, adding that the P124,090,744.16 worth of uncollected revenues, fees, and charges from market stall leases were also not recorded in the book of accounts, based on COA’s observation.
In 2022, Abbu said, all public markets here – Cogon, Carmen, Bulua, and Puerto – had 4,098 stall holders.
But when COA inquired with the City Economic Enterprises Department (CEED), which handles the public markets, the commission observed that no stall holders from the public markets of Carmen and Puerto have signed the contract since the enactment of City Ordinance No. 13219-2017.
In Cogon public market, only 3.1 percent, or 98 out of the 2,569 stall holders, have signed the contract, and only the stall holders of Bulua public market have all signed the contract.
"Naay mga illegal nga gapwesto kuno sa atong mga merkado nga gitolerate sa (there were illegal occupants, accordingly, in our markets that have been tolerated by the) CEED, as per the COA report," added Abbu, stressing that 49.51 percent, or 2,029 of the total stall holders in 2022, are delinquent.
The given uncollected amount is not the final amount, considering that the penalties and surcharges were not included in the computation.
On the other hand, Councilor Ian Mark Nacaya, former chairman of the city council’s committee on economic enterprises, presented to the council the response letter of CEED manager Marfe Dacoco on COA’s report dated Feb. 23, 2023, and said that "it informs COA that it has not appreciated the right number of unoccupied stalls."
"In other words, the stalls that were the basis of COA to compute against the rates of each stall, each section, was not correctly provided," Nacaya added.
The city government here and COA officials, Nacaya said, okayed a joint inventory to address the issue. In the following meeting, accordingly, it was found out that the first computation of COA was incorrect, prompting the commission to give the city government here six months to implement the ordinances related to the collection of fees from public markets.
As to COA’s report on the signing of contracts, Nacaya said former city Mayor Oscar Moreno and CEED started to issue the lease contracts in February 2020, but due to the start of an increasing number of Covid-19 cases, it hasn’t been completed. The
Bulua public market was able to complete the signing of contracts considering the small number of stall holders.
Nevertheless, Nacaya agreed with Abbu that the matter needs to be investigated.
The special report of Abbu has been referred to the committees on economic enterprises, ways and means, and laws and rules for further investigation.