Friday, August 19, 2005
Nigel corrects education spending figure
By Rene H. Martel
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Nigel Paul Villarete yesterday acknowledged that he made a mistake in encoding the amount the Cebu City Government spent for education last year, resulting in “an abnormally low expenditure.”
In his first report, spending for education was just P26.59 million, which was taken from Cebu City’s general fund.
It turned out the P95.32 million taken from the Special Education Fund (SEF) was placed in the row for general public services spending.
Villarete did not notice the mistake when he made the report of the local finance management committee (Fimac). He even commented that “the decrease in expenditure in the education sector needs to be looked into.”
After reviewing the report and discovering the error, he revised the statement and said, “there is a slight decrease in expenditure (compared with 2003), which can still be attributed to the shift to debt payments.”
With the corrections, the report now shows that City Hall spent P118 million in 2002 for education, P149 million in 2003 and P121.92 million last year.
City education consultant Joy Augustus Young said this year, the City Government allocated P161 million for education. Of the amount, P25 million is from the general fund and intended for the purchase of building materials.
The allocation excludes P35 million that Young said was a surplus fund from the previous years.
Young said the City intends to use the surplus amount to construct school buildings.
Concerns were raised that City Hall’s obligation to pay for the South Reclamation Project (SRP) loan was compromising other basic services such as education.
The City spent P819 million on debt servicing the past three years, with P384 million set aside to pay liabilities last year.
This year, the City already paid 288,389,482 yen (P150 million) last February for the SRP loan, estimated to be over P6 billion at today’s exchange rate.
At least P300 million more will be paid today.
(August 19, 2005 issue)
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