Official assures Negros Occidental P5.7-B budget approval next week

NEGROS Occidental Vice Governor Jeffrey Ferrer has assured that the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) will approve the proposed P5.7-billion 2022 Provincial Budget during its regular session on Tuesday next week.

"We are on schedule or even ahead when it comes to budget deliberations and approval," he said.

Ferrer explained that they are just making sure that the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) response of the province is in place.

"We have been in the pandemic so we would like to make sure that we are responsive to the needs of the people," the vice governor added.

On Tuesday, November 9, the deliberation was about the budget of the Provincial Health Office (PHO) and Capitol-run hospitals.

Ferrer said they do not see any problem with the budget proposed by the Office of Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson.

The amount is 20-percent higher compared to the P4.4 billion budget this year.

The increase was due to the Mandanas Ruling of the Supreme Court.

Under which, all collections of the Commission on Customs and other taxes will be included in the computation of the National Tax Allotment (NTA), otherwise known as the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).

A big chunk of the proposed P5,719,337,346 budget for 2022 will go to Special Purpose Appropriations (SPA) pegged at P2,142,140,592 or 37.45 percent.