Committee eyes P3.2B supplemental budget

CEBU, Philippines- The Cebu City’s local finance committee wants over P3.2 billion in the first supplemental budget this year for the full payment of the P3 billion South Road Properties loan, the productivity enhancement incentives of City Hall employees, among others.

City administrator and Local Finance Committee chairwoman Lucille Mercado said Mayor Michael Rama has already approved the proposed additional budget.

However, Mercado cla-rified that the amount may still increase since there are other departments that want to add to the budget.

The bulk of the P3.2 billion additional budget for the year, she said, constitutes the P2.5 billion ba-lance of the P3-billion SRP loan, P78 million productivity incentive to emplo-yees, P100 million road asphalting, over P80 million for city sponsored activities, P9.3 million in preparation for the El Niño phenomenon that will recommence in August or September, and other obligations from preceding years.

“Of course, we will not endorse it to the City Council unless we have the actual source of funds,” Mercado told The FREEMAN.

She said the additional budget proposal will likely be endorsed to the legislative body next month once the city government will receive the P8 billion representing half of the P16.7 billion from the three developers that emerged as the highest bidder for the sale of 45 hectares of SRP.

The city took a P4-billion loan from Japan through JICA to develop the SRP. According to the terms, the loan is payable in 25 years and the amortization payments, made twice a year, will continue until 2025.

The city government has been paying the loan at P500 million to P550 million a year.

On June 30, the city’s Committee on Awards declared the consortium of Ayala Land, Cebu Holdings Inc. and SM Prime Holdings as the highest bidder (P10.009 billion) for 26.3 hectares of the SRP while Filinvest Land Inc. was the highest bidder (P6.7 billion) for a 19.2-hectare property.

On that day also, the city earned P1.6 billion as revenue from the bid security bond of the winning developers.

For the bonus of the employees, it is the consequence of the Executive Order issued by President Benigno Aquino III granting the productivity incentive of either P5,000 or the equivalent of a month’s basic pay to all qualified government employees.

Mercado said the local finance committee has agreed to give the one-month basic salary of the qualified employees.

However, the one-time disbursement of the one-month salary bonus will only be allowed if a government agency meets at least 90 percent of their 2014 targets under two performance indicators: quantity, quality, or timeliness, and at least one major final output under operations as stated in the Executive Order No. 181.

For the El Niño preparation amounting to P9.3 million, the city government wants to give P100,000 to each of the 31 mountain barangays to buy drums while another P200,000 to each of the 31 mountain barangays to buy water hoses.

Mercado said that the executive department hopes the City Council will approve the additional budget for the city.  (FREEMAN)