Labella eyes P10B for Cebu City 2021 annual budget

Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella says he is considering only P10 billion for the city’s annual budget for next year. | screengrab

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella is considering only P10 billion for Cebu City’s 2021 annual budget.

Labella said this on Saturday, October 10, 2020, a day after the P22.3 billion Annual Investment Plan (AIP) was endorsed by the Cebu City Development Council (CCDC) 

The mayor said that even if the annual budget would be based in the AIP, the source of funds would have be the determining factor as to how much actual funds could the city afford to spend.

Read: Councilor to Labella: Prioritize pandemic response in 2021 budget

Since the city allots a budget based on the projection of tax collection and revenues for the incoming year, Labella has already taken into consideration the pandemic. 

“It’s quite difficult at this point because our tax collection is not as high as before the pandemic. But I am confident that we will have enough sources of revenues to attain that budget in 2021,” said Labella. 

The mayor promised to focus the budgets on health especially for the Cebu City Medical Center, the buying of medicine and vaccines, and the purchase of better medical equipment. 

A P500 million allocation was supposed to be part of the annual budget for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but the local finance committee projected that a vaccine would not most likely be available yet by 2021. 

“So we decided not to allocate the budget yet. Anyway, if there is really a vaccine, we can always make a supplemental budget,” said Labella. 

The mayor said that other projects such as infrastructure, aid for economic recovery, and education would also be prioritized. 

He assured that the city government would maximize its resources to fund only what would be immediately necessary for the city to recover from the pandemic. /dbs