PB approves P325M supplemental budget

CEBU, Philippines -  The Cebu Provincial Board yesterday approved the first supplemental budget totaling to P325 million, which includes the Capitol employees’ P23 million collective negotiation agreement  incentive.

The P325,888,000 supplemental budget, sponsored by PB member Grecilda Sanchez, the head of the committee on Budget and Appropriation, was carried on mass motion in yesterday’s special session.

Provincial Budget Officer Danilo Rodas said that of the whole amount approved, P23 million will go to the employees.

Governor Hilario Davide III has promised Capitol employees during the province’s 445th Founding Anniversary celebration last week of a P15,000 incentive. Rodas said he hopes the budget will be released to the workers Friday next week.  The biggest chunk of the budget will go to the “development projects,” which will eat up P207 million from the total amount, said Rodas.

According to the approved PB resolution, which carries the budget ordinance, the budget has been itemized for “construction/rehabilitation/furnishing/maintenance of buildings and other structures” of the province.

The budget officer said P4 million of the amount also goes to the feasibility study of the proposed transaxial highway and around P1 million to the “road coordinating investing program.”

He said P60 million from the same budget is allocated to the operations of province-run hospitals.

Also, Rodas said that P21 million of the P325 million would be coming from termination of the contract between the Provincial government and Kepco-SPC.

Early this year the Capitol and Kepco SPC, which operated a 200-megawatt coal-fired power plant in the City of Naga, agreed to terminate the 25-year contract with the province, signed in 2009.

From that termination, the Capitol will receive a $500,000 fee after the power company waived the contract’s initial payment in favor of the province. —/ATO (FREEMAN)