Cherry Ann T. Lim – Philip A. Cerojano
October 20, 2022
Retrieved from: http://bit.ly/3XM2vay
THE leader of the minority bloc in the Cebu City Council will support Mayor Michael Rama’s proposed annual budget of P50 billion for 2023 if there is money to fund it.
This was the reaction of Councilor Nestor Archival after the proposed budget was formally referred to the committee on budget and finance headed by Councilor Noel Wenceslao for the first reading last Wednesday.
“P50 billion is a big amount. For me, if the money is available and it is used wisely to benefit the city and its residents, that would be ideal and the best because P50 billion, I think, is the biggest in the country,” Archival said in a mix of English and Cebuano.
If approved, the P50 billion would dwarf the current budgets of the three richest cities in the country.
The annual budget of Quezon City in the National Capital Region is only P30.5 billion for 2022, according to Ordinance No. 3063 of the Quezon City Council that enacted it.
The Commission on Audit tagged Quezon City as the wealthiest city in the country in terms of assets in 2021.
Manila City’s 2022 annual budget is P22.2 billion, while Makati City’s annual budget is P17.8 billion.
It is not known how much these three cities are proposing for their 2023 budgets.
Don’t overspend
The P50 billion Rama is proposing for 2023 is a more than 450 percent jump from Cebu City’s budget this year of nearly P9 billion.
Archival said it is important for the City Government not to spend more than it earns.
Archival pointed out that the City Government’s revenue collection in 2021 was only P7.36 billion.
“It is very clear that we do not spend more than our income and we do not make a budget if there is no money. We cannot spend what we do not have,” he said in a mix of Cebuano and English.
In 2021, the City was able to collect only P7.36 billion in revenues, but the money that went to expenses reached P10.27 billion.
In 2020, the first year of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic that thrashed businesses, the City collected P8.73 billion, but its expenses were at P10.38 billion.
In 2019, pre-pandemic, the City collected P8.4 billion, exceeding its P8.2 billion in target income.
Archival said the minority bloc cannot do anything if Rama insists on pushing through with his proposed P50 billion budget.
However, he said the City Government may have to take out a loan and raise taxes since the mayor’s proposed budget is 450 percent higher than this year’s budget of P9 billion.
Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia said Rama’s desire for a big budget in 2023 is in line with the mayor’s dream to make Cebu City “Singapore-like.”
Fund sources
According to Rama’s proposal, the P50 billion will be sourced from the General Fund Proper like the National Tax Allotment (P2.74 billion), tax revenues (P44.5 billion), non-tax revenues (P2.1 billion) and shares from the economic zone (P300 million).
Another source of money will be special accounts like the income from the operation of city markets (P108.4 million), local development fund (P548.1 million), income from the city hospital (P180 million) and funding from the General Fund Proper (P773.4 million), among others, for a total of P1.75 billion. (PJB)