Cebu City mulls having P400M supplemental budget

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government is considering another Supplemental Budget (SB) before the year 2020 ends to pay off taxes and the hazard pay of frontliners. 

Councilor Raymond Garcia, chairperson for the City Council’s committee on finance, said that the local finance committee had submitted for consideration an SB 4 worth approximately P400 million. 

The SB will primarily be used to pay off taxes the city owes to the Bureau of Internal Revenues (BIR) for the non-governmental functions the city do such as rent for buildings, parking fees, and similar generated revenues. 

Read: 2021 Cebu City budget needs to source funds from SRP — Garcia

The actual tax actually reaches P1 billion but because of an amnesty, the city need to only pay P200 million to the BIR. 

Aside from that, the city will need to roll out the long awaited hazard pay for the frontliners in the barangays, which will cost an additional P100 million. 

Read: Nurses still waiting for Cebu City’s promised cash aid

Additional health equipment or testing materials will also be needed for the City Health Department (CHD), which will cost another P100 million. 

Garcia said that the city’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) would need continuous funding until the pandemic would be over. 

Read: Seniors, health get big chunk of Cebu City’s proposed P10.8B 2021 budget

The city has spent over P4 billion in supplemental budgets in 2020, on top of the P10.4 billion annual budget allotted early this year. 

The city have shed out almost P15 billion for 2020 alone, most of which have been for COVID-19 response. 

Still, Garcia said much of the annual budget had not been used as the city deferred certain projects for infrastructure to fund the COVID-19 response. 

The City Council will tackle the supplemental budget on its regular session on October 28, 2020. /dbs

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