Mayor Belen: See you at the committee hearing
OPPOSITION TELLS HER TO ATTEND
DAGUPAN City Mayor Belen Fernandez is still willing to appear before the committee on finance, budget and appropriation’s weekly hearing on February 27 to defend the annual budget of the city despite refusal of the majority in the Sangguniang Panlungsod to conduct daily hearings.
Fernandez said she will attend the hearing in the hope that it will help speed up the process for the annual budget’s approval. The proposed 2024 budget was submitted to the SP last October 2023, or four months earlier.
Records of the city secretariat reveal that the SP committee on finance, budget and appropriations only conducted six committee hearings since January this year and the sixth or latest was on February 13.
Recall that the seven majority councilors in the opposition ignored her January 5 letter calling for daily special sessions in order to fast track the approval of the budget and her January 17 letter certifying to the urgency for the passage of the 2024 annual investment program and the 2024 annual budget.
She said she’s ready to file a case against the majority councilors for ignoring her certification of urgency but she added it’s still not the option she wants to take at this time.
It was the majority that filed a petition for a Temporary Restraining Order seeking to stop the implementation of the 2023 annual budget which the SP majority claimed was illegally passed. The petition was summarily denied.
Meanwhile, City Legal Officer Aurora Valle belied a statement of committee chairman Councilor Redford Erfe-Mejia that Mayor Fernandez is preventing department heads from attending the committee hearings on the budget
“It’s not true. It is always the directive of the city mayor that all department heads shall attend every committee hearing. In fact, being the city legal officer, the city executive always reminds me the obligation that all department heads should attend and bring along with them the data that they are requiring.”
She said the latest folders that were submitted to the SP were from the City Administrator’s Office, Public Employment Service Office, City Veterinary Office, Population Office, MISU and City Library, Valle said. (Leonardo Micua)
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