Lim reminded to follow the law
VETO OR NO VETO
THE eight majority members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP), taking note of the partial veto of Mayor Benjamin Lim on the approved budget ordinance, assert that he “must still follow the law” even if the council does not override the veto.
Under the Local Government Code, the vote of the majority, which should be nine councilors are needed to override the mayor’s veto.
After meeting behind closed doors following their session on March 26, the eight councilors together with Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez, SP chair, said that what they cited in some sections of Ordinance No. 1975-2012, which Lim vetoed, were merely the requirements of the Local Government Code, Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Department of Finance (DOF).
Ordinance No. 1975-2002 operationalized the P581 million budget proposed by the mayor, which was approved by the SP, on motion of Councilor Jeslito Seen, chairman on finance, without any cut.
Vetoed by Lim were Sections V, VI and VII of the ordinance, which he said were “objectionable.”
Section V cites the absence of a Calamity Plan as contained in the Annual Investment Plan (AIP) and this was the council’s reason for not authorizing the details of the breakdown of expenditures of the 5% budgetary reserve, also called the calamity fund.
Lim insisted that the AIP was received by the SP on September 2011 and long before the enactment of Ordinance 1975-2012, “a calamity Plan was in fact formulated and prepared.”
In response, the vice mayor said the thick book submitted by City Administrator Vladimir Mata to the SP during their last budget hearing “was in fact a repetition of what was submitted before by the City Administrator and did not again contain any details.”
“Makikita doon na wala pa ring complete Risk Reduction Management Plan that was submitted to us,” said Fernandez after conferring with Councilors Seen, Alfie Fernandez, Karlos Reyna, Librada Reyna, Alvin Coquia, Jesus Canto, and Luis Samson Jr.
Another vetoed item was Section VI of the ordinance that declares as unauthorized the details and breakdown of expenditures of the 20 percent development fund due to the absence of the Comprehensive Development Plan and Local Development Investment Plan.
Lim said this section is without basis in fact and in law since the SP cannot deny the fact of receipt of a copy of the AIP wherein the details and breakdown of various items of expenditures are very specific and leaves no room for doubt as to its implementation.
Fernandez denies that the SP received the AIP, saying that without the Comprehensive Development Plan and the Local Development Investment Plan, the AIP could not be approved.
The vice mayor warned that if the city mayor thinks he can get away with non-compliance of the law, then that would be his own undoing “because COA will certainly not allow it.”
RETURNED BUDGET
The mayor also vetoed Section VII of the ordinance that he considers as misplaced and has no implication to the present budget because citing stemmed Cebu’s case operating under a re-enacted budget, is contra-distinguished from an approved annual budget.
The vice mayor maintained that this has relevance to the approved budget of Dagupan and stressed that what is important is that the executive must comply with the law and the requirement of the DBM.
Last year, the DBM returned Dagupan’s submitted budget to the SP for having incomplete documents.
“This was what happened before,” Fernandez said, adding that “there is likelihood that this year’s budget would also be returned if the mayor will not comply with the submission of the required document.”
She said they approved the P581 million proposed budget with conditions precisely because city hall department heads were not allowed by Lim to attend the budget hearings that left so many questions unanswered and required documents were not submitted.
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