Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella on June 8, 2021.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella is confident that his proposed P4.4 billion supplemental budget will be passed by the City Council soon, most especially since it contains the allocation to pay off the remaining balance of the loan the city took in 1995 to build South Road Properties (SRP).
READ: Cebu City will soon be debt-free, SRP proceeds almost used up
The supplemental budget that is set to be presented to the Council on June 9, 2021 includes the P1.2 billion allocation to pay for the remaining balance of the loan.
“This is good. We will no longer be paying interest of the loan kay dako man kaayo ang interest sa loan. We can use the money for more projects,” said the mayor.
Although the supplemental budget has taken months before reaching the Committee on Budget and Finance, Labella is confident that it will easily pass through the City Council as a whole.
He said he already got the support of Vice Mayor Michael Rama for the passing of the budget since it also contains allocations for the hiring of doctors and nurses to man the vaccination program, which the vice mayor heads.
READ: Cebu City determined to pay off SRP loan before 2022
He hopes that the council will pass the budget soon so that the city government can intensify the vaccination program with more sites operational.
As for the source of funds for the supplemental budget, the mayor is not concerned that a portion of it will be taken from the P16 billion proceeds of the 2015 sale of a 45-hectare lot in the SRP.
The supplemental budget is expected to source P3 billion from the remaining P5 billion of the proceeds. The city government, under Labella’s term, has repeatedly used the funds for annual and supplemental budgets since last year.
“Wala pa nahurot ang SRP sale, dili pa na mahurot,” said the mayor.
He assured the public that the SRP sale proceeds will not be fully depleted because of the supplemental budget.
/bmjo