Tacloban City slowly recovering amid persistent threat of COVID-19, says local exec

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

TACLOBAN CITY — This city is slowly recovering amid the continuing threat of COVID-19.

City Treasurer Zosima Cordaño said the local government is just around 29 percent shy of achieving its target collection for this fiscal year.

From January to August, the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) was able to collect P449.38 million – up by about 4 percent from the collected P431.25 million during the same period last year.

“We are glad that despite the pandemic, the city is coping as we saw an increase in our collection,” she said.

“This is a good sign towards recovery,” Cordaño added.

The city’s financial manager expressed confidence that they could reach their target collection of about P644.3 million for the remaining four months of the year.

In 2020, the CTO only managed to collect an income of P491.9 million.

The income collected by the CTO came from business taxes and fees, real property tax, and income from its various economic enterprises like markets.

Cordaño said that as another sign of the city’s slowly recovering from the pandemic, 863 new business establishments, most of them are into general merchandise, have operated in the past eight months of the year.

She said that with the easing of health protocols due to COVID, more business establishments could start operating in the locality.

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