Port of Cebu surpasses target

The Port of Cebu (POC) surpassed its target revenue for the first quarter by P115 million despite a drop in the volume of imports and the appreciation of the peso against the dollar.

Records obtained by The STAR showed that the POC, under district collector Ricardo Belmonte, collected P1.195 billion from January to March, 10.63 percent above its target of P1.08 billion for the period.

This performance of the Cebu port district of the Bureau of Customs also showed a 6.47-percent improvement as compared to the same period last year.

Belmonte revealed that the volume of imports dropped by about 20 percent in March. He stressed that the robust appreciation of the peso against the dollar should also have resulted to negative performance of the district.

“But we were able to deliver P114.7 million in surplus for the first quarter despite these odds. This means that we can do our job and raise more money for the government despite negative factors such as the drop in the volume of imports and the exchange rate,” Belmonte said.

The Customs official likewise attributed the positive performance of POC to “extra-efforts we exert to improve collection.”

“This also means that we continue to do our job despite allegations (of rampant car smuggling in the port). You see, if those were true we would have not delivered these results,” he pointed out.

A report from the Financial Service of the BOC showed that the port district had the third biggest collection surplus among all 15 port districts of the bureau.

In January and February, the POC posted a cumulative collection of P802 million, or P122 million above its P680-million target for the period.

The collection performance of the Bureau of Customs, as a whole, was not yet available as of yesterday. BOC Commissioner Napoleon Morales said they have yet to consolidate reports of all 15 districts to come up with the first quarter report.

But the BOC chief said he expects the agency to bounce back in its collection campaign this year after falling short in meeting targets for the first two months due to what he described as “success in alternative measures being implemented to boost Customs collections.”

“I think we have a big chance of meeting the March target (P19.3 billion) since we have been surpassing our day-to-day targets for the month. We are still finalizing figures but I think we were able to surpass the target for last month,” Morales said.