Defective budget delays passage
SP asks city hall to correct entries
WHAT’S A budget of P480,000 for two slaughterhouse personnel in a city that does not have a slaughterhouse?
This was only one of the many questionable items in the proposed 2011 budget of Dagupan City, which has now been tossed back by the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) to the office of the city executive for further review and corrections.
The SP, chaired by Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez, suspended its budget hearing last Thursday after noting that the budget being discussed by the body appears to have undergone major revisions and contained numbers which were very different from the original submission.
The vice mayor said the resumption of the hearing will depend on how fast the executive branch can submit the amended and certified new budget proposal.
Present during last week’s hearing were City Administrator Vladimir Mata, Acting City Treasurer Alex Hortaleza, City Budget Officer Ildefonso Calimlim and City Accountant Teresita Manaois.
It was the first time that department heads finally attended council sessions particularly for the discussion of the annual budget.
Deborah Castillo, resource generation officer in the office of the city mayor which is not considered as a department head, was also present and spoke in behalf of the other officials present.
DISCREPANCIES
During the Thursday hearing, Councilor Maybelyn Fernandez pointed out some of the discrepancies after numerous corrections were made on almost all items which were earlier blamed by City Budget Officer Ildefonso Calimlim to “typographical errors”.
Councilor Fernandez also earlier noted the discrepancies in several in the original budget such as the P1 million allocation for foreign travel in the mayor’s office and P600,000 in the office of the SP, but the sum total was stated as P9.1 million.
“Today’s document, it is only P5.1 million. But yesterday’s document, it was P9.1 million or a difference of P4 million,” said Fernandez, pointing out many other irreconcilable figures in the new document submitted by Calimlim.
Consequently, Fernandez said the council will again need more time to do another review given all the new changes and errors noted in the proposed budget.
Councilor Luis Samson, echoing the same sentiment, said the executive branch needs to get its act together and submit a clean amended final proposal and certified correct.
“Masyadong matagal ang discussion dahil pabago-bago ang mga dokumento. Kung papalit-palit ang mga papeles, paano na ito? Kawawa ang Dagupan,” Samson complained. He chided the officials of the executive branch for not closely scrutinizing documents that are submitted to them for signature.
It was Samson who pointed out the budget for personnel of the non-existent slaughterhouse.
The re-submitted budget were signed by the City Administrator, Treasurer, Budget Officer and Accountant.
“Hindi sila puwedeng magkamali. Ang dami nilang signatories and each one of them has the power to review (the budget) before passing it to the Sanggunian,” Councilor Fernandez added.
Councilor Alvin Coquia, for his part, asked the city hall executives to explain why the proposed budget contains a confidential fund of P2 million, intelligence fund of another P2 million and an extra-ordinary fund of P580,790.
Calimlim earlier admitted to the errors in the new document but blamed these on his staff and agreed to the postponement of the hearings until all corrections are done. –LM
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