Manila to MMDA: Account for share of city budget

The Manila City government has recently asked the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to account for how it spent the five-percent budget allocation it gets from the city every year.

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim’s chief of staff, Ricardo de Guzman, wrote MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando last Nov. 10 to inquire about the issue.

De Guzman said every year for the past several years, Manila has been remitting five percent of its annual appropriation to the MMDA for the agency to provide basic services such as flood control, drainage, beautification and other infrastructure programs designed to improve the overall environment and ecology of the city.

“However, we have yet to receive reports from your end on the actual disbursements and accomplishment as to the utilization and disposition of the city’s contribution,” De Guzman said in his letter to Fernando.

De Guzman had asked Fernando to furnish the city government with copies of reports on actual disbursements and the specific areas in the city on which the money was spent.

The charter of the MMDA and its predecessor, the Metropolitan Manila Commission under then governor Imelda Marcos, provides for the agency to get five percent from the annual bud­gets of the cities and towns in Metro Manila for its operation and programs in the metropolis.

Reached for comment, Fernando said he has yet to receive any official communiqué from the Manila City government.

“We have not heard anything,” he told The STAR, adding that they are willing to make an accounting on how they spent the five-percent allocation.