CITOM collects more revenues

CEBU, Philippines - The revenue collection efforts of the Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (CITOM) has paid off now that they have increased collection in February this year compared to their accomplishment in the same month last year.

This, according to Traffic Violations Bureau (TVB) head Sofia Bacolod in a report presented to Mayor Michael Rama yesterday.

CITOM executive officer Rafael Christopher Yap said his department collected P5,369,428 from parking and traffic violation fees, including other regulatory fees last February, which is higher compared to the P4,753,727 collected in February 2011.

Bacolod’s report showed that CITOM had collected P2,842,860 from parking fees alone during the whole month which is higher than the P2,719,455 for the same period last year.Administrative fines, collected from drivers apprehended for traffic violations, also went up from P581,290 in 2011 to P1,100,210 last month.

Collections from parking fees this year is expected to increase because starting yesterday the P15 hourly parking fee for vehicles parking in designated roadside parking areas have already been increased to P20.

Yap is expecting that the P34 million revenue collections of the parking fees for 2011 will increase to about P45 million this year.

The Cebu City Council earlier approved the proposal of Councilor Richard “Ritchie” Osmeña to increase the parking fee rates not only for CITOM to earn more revenues, but also to discourage long hours of parking vehicles along the roads.

“Naa man go’y ubang mga tag-iya og sakyanan nga dunay mga tindahan nga walay parking areas nga anha ra nila iparking ang ilang vehicles sa karsada tibook adlaw, (There are some vehicle owners who own establishments that do not have parking areas and they just park their vehicles along the road all day.)” said Yap.

The FREEMAN received reports that some parking aides are engaged in illegal money-making activities by issuing only a few parking fee tickets to regular customers in exchange for “pocket money.”

“Dugay na kaayo na nga gibuhat sa uban namo nga kaubang parking aides ug tingali kahibawo man ang among mga dagku ana sa CITOM, (This has been practiced for a long time by my fellow parking aides. Perhaps our officials in CITOM are aware of this.)” said a traffic enforcer, who requested anonymity.

Yap said he will look into the report but claimed he did not notice the alleged illegal activities of some of his parking aides.  (FREEMAN)