Mayor Belen orders belt-tightening in city operations
AMID FINANCIAL CRISIS CAUSED BY LIM ADMIN
A strict belt-tightening policy and intensified revenue collection from all sources was ordered by Mayor Belen Fernandez amid a projected a shortfall in collection of P60 million in the Dagupan City government up to the end of the year and missing records of collected revenues by the past Lim administration.
Mayor Fernandez said OIC City Treasurer Randy Ubando reported that the city government will not be able to realize the estimated bloated income that the previous administration had set,” Fernandez told newsmen during a Breakfast Forum on Wednesday.
The previous city administration targeted an estimated income of P1.38 billion this year, which the financial advisers of Mayor Fernandez considered as unrealistic since Dagupan had not fully recovered from the two-year pandemic that led to many business establishments’ closure or suspension of operations.
She called on city hall employees to help to enable the city government to survive its worst financial crisis yet.
Fernandez said the projected shortfall was the chief reason why she did not grant the demand of Councilor Redford Erfe-Mejia, chairman of the Sangguniang Panlungsod committee on finance, budget and appropriations, that each of the 12 city councilors be allowed to take 10 emergency workers in their respective offices.
Erfe-Mejia demanded that the allocations for 10 EWs for each councilor during the past city administration of then Mayor Brian Lim be continued by the Fernandez administration.
The mayor only approved the allocation for three EWs per councilor and hired more EWs to clean the public markets and city streets.
She said compounding the financial crisis in the city were unreported collections from stallholders at the public markets, fees due from operators of shades at the Tondaligan beach and in various public comfort rooms. (Leonardo Micua)
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