By: Jose Santino S. Bunachita April 27,2016 - 03:56 AM

After twice postponing discussions on the revised P9.8-billion annual budget for 2016 due to lack of quorum, the Cebu City Council finally resumed the budget hearings yesterday.

Cebu City Hall’s executive department is proposing to allocate P24 million for medicines, hearing aids and other in-kind assistance to senior citizens in the city instead of spending the amount on vests, which was earlier met with objections.

“We changed it to other supplies and materials for senior citizens. Before, it was supposed to be for vests, but we amended it,” City Budget Officer Marietta Gumia explained to the council yesterday.

Some councilors expressed concern, considering that there are about 67,300 qualified senior citizens in the city.

Gumia said they have yet to draw up guidelines. Questions were raised on who would be prioritized and whether the budget would be enough to grant all requests.

The council also questioned a P4-million proposal for incentives to “volunteers” during this year’s Sinulog Festival.

Gumia explained that the amount represented a P2,000 incentive to each of around 2,000 garbage collectors, barangay environmental officers, street cleaners and personnel from the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) who spent the entire night after the Sinulog festivities  doing their job.

They were also given an allowance in previous years.

The council agreed not to use the term “volunteers” and to just label the allocation as incentives for the personnel.

The council also discussed a P107-million educational assistance program which, Gumia said, is intended as an assistance to students that will be affected by the implementation of the K to 12 program this year.

“This represents a P1,000 assistance to 170,000 students. The numbers came from the Local School Board,” Gumia said.

Earlier, the council discussed the sources of funds for the budget.

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TAGS: budget, Cebu, Cebu City, guidelines

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