Young: P5B budget more likely

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young said it is possible the City Council will just approve the P5 billion budget for the city for 2012 because the proposed billions of pesos in borrowings still cannot be used to fund the suggested P11.8 billion budget.

Mayor Michael Rama approved the proposal of the members of the Local Finance Committee for the city to avail of P2 billion to augment the overall budget, but Young clarified that there is no application yet for such a loan and since it was not approved by the City Council, it cannot be considered yet as revenue source.

In yesterday’s budget conference, Budget Officer Nelfa Briones, Planning and Development Officer Alipio Bacalso and City Treasurer Tessie Camarillo, who compose the Local Finance Committee, agreed that the proposed borrowings without an enabling ordinance cannot be considered as source of revenue.

But Acting City Administrator Dominic Diño explained that borrowings is allowed to be part of the sources of funds for a proposed budget citing Section 316 (b) of the Local Government Code that provides “the local finance committee shall recommend the appropriate tax and other revenue measures or borrowing, which may be appropriate to support the budget.”

Because of the admission of the members of the Local Finance Committee that the proposed P2 billion borrowings cannot be used as source of the annual budget, Young expects that what the City Council may approve as budget for 2012 is just the same budget for this year.

This year’s annual budget of Cebu City is P4,133,558,195 but it had Supplemental Budgets 1 and 2 amounting to P47 million and about P400 million, respectively.

The LFC members also failed to explain how the city’s projected revenue of P4 billion from its various economic enterprise can be collected because the city treasurer said that they do not have a complete listing of their expected income, aside from the P600 million to be taken from the installment payment of Filinvest Land Inc. of the 10 hectares of SRP lots that it bought.

“Lisod kaayo nga mo-approve ta og budget nga subra sa atong income kay asa man ta mokuha og kwarta nga igasto sa mga projects?” Young said.

Since last week the City Council has conducted a series of budget conferences with the LFC members and the heads of the city’s economic enterprise departments like the city abattoir, markets and others for the city legislators to find out whether the city can fund the proposed huge budget of the mayor for next year.

Although Young did not say how much the City Council will slash from the proposed budget, he said “Ato lang tingali ibalik ang Skin-and-Bone budget nga kon pila’y budget karon mao lang gihapon ug kon maka-surplus, supplemental budget na lang.”

Mayor Michael Rama earlier said that it is the people of the city who will be greatly affected if the City Council will not approve the proposed budget because he has lined up several infrastructure projects that will benefit the public, like the improvement of the drainage systems and flood control programs.

The City Council will continue the series of budget hearings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week and this time the city legislators will ask the department heads to explain the importance of their proposed expenditures.

First to be called are the heads of divisions under the Office of the Mayor, the City Health Department and other divisions.

It was learned that Rama proposed that the city will spend P50 million for the purchase of a barge that, according to him, can be used in firefighting operations if there will be fires in coastal areas that cannot be reached by fire trucks. (FREEMAN)