Wednesday, July 02, 2008 Boholst appeals for budget passage
MANDAUE City Administrator Briccio Boholst has appealed to the City Council to pass the P205 million supplemental budget, to be sourced from what are considered surplus funds.
Boholst said the P205 million will be sourced from the previous year’s budget surplus. The amount is intended to fund the repair of roads, maintain the city hospital, hire staff for councilors and grant salary adjustments to City Hall employees.
Opposition councilors raised concerns the fund might again be shelved and remain idle.
Boholst said these so-called idle funds have been appropriated and will be spent on projects once City Hall straightens out some legal and technical matters.
Boholst said the amount—P17 million from the increase in the internal revenue allotment (IRA) and P188 million in surplus of the previous year’s budget—does not touch any revenue budget.
Differences
He asked opposition councilors to “join hands to help the city and set aside our political differences.” He said the fund will benefit both Mandaue City employees and residents.
Opposition Councilor Emil Rosal, meanwhile, said he is not against the supplemental budget. He, however, expressed concern that the amount is too big and allocations for road repairs and maintenance were not specified. He said a smaller amount may be acceptable to the council.
Boholst issued the appeal after some councilors warned they will block the supplemental budget’s passage because it might suffer the same fate as the unused P122 million fund.
“In effect they are implying that they prefer more funds to remain unused if they will not pass this supplemental budget,” said Boholst.
The P122 million, labeled by a Commission on Audit (COA) report as “idle,” are appropriated funds but the projects got stalled because of court litigation on road-right-of-way, Boholst said the medium-rise housing project was also stalled because the National Housing Authority asked for new requirements.
Of the amount, P68 million will go to infrastructure and road improvements and P7.7 million will be spent for hospital maintenance. The rest will be spent on salaries of legislative assistants that will soon be assigned to councilors as well as bonuses and salary adjustments of City Hall employees that should have been released several months back.
No details
Rosal said he is not against the appropriation for salary adjustments and bonuses as this is mandated. But, he said, most of the entries in the supplemental budget are “lump sum” appropriations with no specific details like the P35 million appropriation for “projects.”
He said there are items that are only identified as “programs and projects.” Rosal said this is not in line with Mayor Jonas Cortes’ promise of transparency.
Rosal said the council may support the passage of these lump sum appropriations on the condition that an enabling resolution will be required before funds are released and spent.
He also expressed concern on allocating funds for the salaries of legislative assistants when this is already included in the annual budget. He said approving the proposal would result into double appropriation.
Rosal, meanwhile, issued his own appeal to City Hall—that he be given a summary of Mandaue City’s continuing appropriations since 2003. (OCP)
