City revenues at P2.4B but still short of target

CEBU – The Cebu City’s revenue collection from January until October has already reached P2.4 billion, but city officials are still confident they will achieve their P2.7 billion target collection by the end of this year.

Assistant city treasurer Emma Villarete said the city’s estimated target income for 2008 is P2,710,415,499 but as of October 31 the total amount of revenues collected is only P2,410,288,719 or a shortfall of P300 million.

But Villarete said she is confident that they will meet the estimated target collection for this year.

The city’s budget office hoped to earn P735 million from the sales of government lots, particularly at the South Road Properties and North Reclamation Area, but only got P463.4 million.

The P463.4 million represents the payment of the city-owned lot at the North Reclamation Area that was bought and paid for by Robinson’s department store.

“We just hope that our revenue for November and December will reach more than P300 million so that we can meet our target income,” said Villarete.

Budget officer Nelfa Briones has allocated P2,554,778,743 for the appropriation, but Villarete said the total amount of appropriation as of October only reached at P1,688,381,581 or 66 percent.

The City Council earlier questioned the budget office about it after the councilors said it is not good that the city appropriated funds not spent for its purpose.

Briones also said that the total amount was really spent for the various projects although the accounting of the expenditures is still ongoing.

It was learned that the city allocated P104.6 million for the capital outlay of the different departments but only P9.1 million or 8.7 percent had been spent. —Rene U. Borromeo/BRP (THE FREEMAN)