Capitol acquires P1B Naga lot for WTE project

The Cebu provincial government acquired a 64-hectare lot in Naga City valued at about P1 billion after its private owner purportedly failed to pay for its real property tax due. | CDN DIGITAL FILE PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu provincial government has acquired a 64-hectare lot in the City of Naga, southern Cebu after its private owner failed to pay the real property tax for the lot.

The Provincial Information Office (PIO), quoting Provincial Treasurer Roy Salubre, said the property was auctioned by the province in 2007 after the lot owner, a certain Leopolda Cecilio,  failed to pay P11 million in real property tax.

Salubre said Cecilio’s option to redeem the property has passed after she failed to pay the dues within the one-year prescribed period.

The property, located in Barangay Uling, is the identified site for the province’s Waste-to-Energy (WTE) project, which the province intended to implement through a build, transfer, and operate (BTO) partnership with private firms.

READ: 11 firms want to build WTE facility in Naga

The province’s newly acquired lot is valued at about P1 billion. The value of the property will be added to the total assets of the province, which stood at P202 billion at the end of 2019.

The value of the total assets of the province in 2019 leaped by about 487 percent compared to its value of P34.5 billion in 2018 after the Capitol conducted a reappraisal of the existing real properties of the province.

The province, with the P34.5 billion net worth of the province in 2018, was hailed by the Commission on Audit as the “richest” among the 81 provinces in the country for that year.

/bmjo