MANDAUE CITY’S EXECUTIVE DEP’T’s PROPOSAL
The Mandaue City executive department is proposing a budget of P2.4 billion for 2019.
The proposed budget will be almost two times less compared to the 2018 approved budget of P4.7 billion.
Of the proposal, City Treasurer and Lawyer Regal Oliva said, the bulk of the budget will go to the offices of the Mayor, City Engineer, General Services, among others in Mandaue City.
Each office is planned to be allocated with at least five percent or about P100 million from the total budget being proposed to the Sangguniang Panlungsod, said Oliva in an interview on Monday.
Oliva also said that among the projects or expenses planned for 2019, P180 million would be allotted for the construction of the drainage master plan while P20 million would be allocated for the expenses of the city’s 50th year celebration next year.
The City Treasurer also explained the reason this year’s budget reached P4.7 billion.
Oliva said that the administration allocated it for a big project particularly the planned construction of the new government center, which had been pegged to cost P900 million.
While P3.2 billion went to the appropriation of the different offices in 2018.
In fact, Oliva said the city government had about P500 million surplus from their budget which he described as “austerity” or coming from austerity measures implemented by the offices.
Otherwise, he said, some offices might not have done their job by utilizing their resources.
“Maybe some offices are not doing their job,” he said.
Thus, Oliva said they were now adopting a “zero-based budgeting” that would make sure that the appropriation would be utilized from the different offices.
“It should be what the offices would need. We based it on the expenses that they have had for the past years,” Oliva said.
With this, he said most of the offices now have reduced its proposed budget for 2019 of about 12 to 19 percent.
“Budgeting is proper planning. If you do not plan properly the expenses of your budget or your office it means you are not planning for the whole office itself,” he said.
If an office would need a budget that was not included in the appropriation, Oliva said they would do a supplemental, realignment or revision of the budget.
“They have to certify the urgency of the expense. Kay kon dili kinahanglanon gyod nila then don’t spend anything from it,” he said.
Meanwhile, tax revenues of the city also increased to P2.06 billion as of Nov 15.
While last year, Oliva said the city had only about P1.8 billion tax being collected.
He said they are targeting to reach P2.1 billion collection before the year ends.
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