City No Funds for Other Projects

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama wants to have a Supplemental Budget to finance additional projects this year, but the problem is that there might be no available funds for it.

Although the City Treasurer’s Office continues to collect revenues from the taxpayers, these can’t be used to fund a supplemental budget because the collections are already earmarked for the Annual Budget.

In his press conference Thursday, Rama said he will task the members of the Local Finance Committee including City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete to help look for the needed funds to support the supplemental budget.

The Local Finance Committee is composed of the budget officer, city treasurer and the city planning and development officer.

While the annual budget can just be approved with only an estimate of revenues to be collected to support the proposed amount, this is not so for supplemental budgets wherein the law provides that it should be supported with actual available cash on hand or in bank.

A source privy to the accounts of the City Treasurer’s Office said there is no available money to support whatever supplemental budget that the mayor wants to propose to the City Council.

The City’s annual budget for this year is P5.2 Billion, but the city’s actual collection as of last month was still about P2.5 Billion. Although the amount is already about half of the budget amount, few taxpayers pay by the second half of the year.

Most of the taxpayers pay their taxes during the start of the year, particularly from January 2 to 20 for the business taxes and April for the real property taxes. The revenue collection from the business and real property taxes had been earmarked already for the annual budget.

The usual practice of the Local Finance Committee to secure the needed funds for the Supplemental Budgets is to realign unused allocations.

The mayor had wanted to sell certain lots at the South Road Properties (SRP) as one way to earn additional revenues but so far no contracts have been signed for the sale of the lots situated just near the approach of the viaduct or across Barangay Mambaling.

The mayor refused to identify what are his possible projects.

MetroCebuNews learned from General Service Office (GSO) head Rolando Ardoza that he will be asking for more fuel budget. “Dili man g’yud makaabot sa pagtapos sa tuig ang atong fuel budget,” Ardoza said in a previous interview.

Meanwhile, Ruben Baculi, head of the City Hall’s burial and cash assistance section, said he plans to ask for P15 million additional budget.

He said the P10 million is for the cash assistance while the remaining P5 million is for the burial assistance. The family of a deceased resident of the City can avail of P10,000 cash aid, aside from the free casket.

“Ang cash aid maoy daku ta og gasto kay ang ubang mga kwarta-kwartahan dili na man mangayo’g lungon mao nga daku ang atong kinahanglang budget sa cash aid,” Baculi said.