2013 was “a bit difficult” for BTF
DAGUPAN Mayor Belen Fernandez considers 2013 as “a little bit difficult year” but was glad that the city was able to pull through despite an almost empty coffer left by the past city administration.
Steering the city starting July this year after scoring an upset victory against the former mayor, Benjamin Lim, Fernandez marked the start of her reign by instituting judicious spending and a lot of belt-tightening measures.
With little cash left to spend, Fernandez managed to turn around the city’s finances within a few months and she readily credits the city government employees for their cooperation, including emergency workers who continued to perform their duties even if their wages were delayed.
In an interview, Fernandez said the distribution of 14th month pay to the city’s regular employees could be considered the ultimate proof that Dagupan is now back on its feet.
“Early on, I put the building blocks and rallied the employees to support me and my programs and which they graciously did. Everything was academic after that,” the city mayor said.
Noting that the P17 million in electric bills for 2012 was paid out of the 2013 budget, which contributed to the city’s financial troubles, Fernandez said she will not continue with the past administration’s illegal practice of passing previous year’s obligations to the following year’s appropriation.
“My administration (in July) started with P30 million deficit but through good husbanding of available resources, we were able to pay all outstanding obligations, including electric bills,” she said.
OUTSIDE HELP
Aware that what was left in the coffer was not enough to sustain the operations of the city until the end of the year, she went on to ask support from private businesses in Manila who promptly channeled parts of their budget for their corporate social responsibility programs to Dagupan City.
“We thank private businesses and several national government agencies for their valuable support to our programs. With their support, we no longer need to buy essential items that we needed for our medical and dental missions and our livelihood projects,” Fernandez revealed.
Fernandez also considers as another crowning glory of her new administration her success in transforming a non-performing office to one of the best performing.
With reforms and innovations she culled from her business, the city market office headed by Aguedo Sta. Maria, began to register additional monthly collections of P1 million, a level unprecedented in the history of Dagupan.
Fernandez also said she wants to institute a reshuffle in the city treasurer’s office to make the nine division chiefs become more effective.
She attributed the P30 million collection to the failure of some under-performing department heads to either collect or remit full collections possibly in cahoots with some taxpayers.
“A non-performing chief of office should not stay longer in the place where he or she is assigned ,” the mayor said hinting of a possible revamp early next year. –(LVM)
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