THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) Port of Cebu yesterday announced that its collection for last month totaled P576.5 million, which is P4.85 million over the port’s target.
Port of Cebu District Collector Ronnie Silvestre said the February collection of P576,531,219.68 compares with the target for the month of P571.682 million.
Port of Cebu’s robust collections have contributed to the P2-billion surplus managed by the bureau nationwide for February.
Last month’s national target was P15.07 billion. The BOC collected P13.11 billion nationwide, resulting in a surplus of P2 billion.
Breakdown
Florante Ricarte, assistant assessment chief of the Port of Cebu, said the P576.5 million collection was accounted for by the main port (P543.44 million), Sub-port of Mactan (P30.62 million) and Sub-port of Dumaguete (P2.47 million).
Silvestre said the surplus collection can be attributed to the heavy importation of the energy sector, especially the Global Power Corp. and Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) in Toledo City, and the Korean Electric Power Company (Kepco) in Naga City, Cebu.
The three companies have been importing equipment and machinery for the ongoing construction of their new coal-fired power plants since last year.
In a joint venture, CEDC, Global Power Corp. and Toledo Power Corp. are constructing three 82-megawatt power plants for a total of 246 megawatts.
The first 82-megawatt plant will start full operations on March 5.
The second plant will operate in June, and the third one will be operational in December.
Kepco, on the other hand, will start operating its power plant next year.
“I hope their importation will continue in the coming months, especially since for March, our target collection will be P670 million. We will have to double our efforts because our goal for March is higher by P99 million,” Silvestre said.
Transactions
The Port of Cebu is introducing a computer program that will increase transparency in the customs transactions, from the filing of import entries to the order of release of goods.
The new program will enable the entry processing unit, the assessment division and the cash division to record their respective data. There will be no more manual calculation of values in the assessment of imported goods, among others.
Silvestre said transparency is the number one policy of the Port of Cebu under him.