Consultations on for Cebu City’s 2013 budget

CEBU  City Mayor Michael Rama promises the 2013 budget to be a “people’s budget” as public consultations start today.

It’s now the turn of business groups, sectoral representatives, barangay officials and even the ordinary sidewalk vendors to be heard.

Three sessions will be held today with 17 north district upland barangay officials, members of the academe and business groups.

Consultations will continue until Saturday to also involve the remaining 63 barangays, senior citizens, judges and the police, vendors, drivers, labor, children, transgender, urban poor groups and professionals.

“These are not like gatherings  for the election. The local government code mandates that people should be consulted in crafting the budget,”said Ofelia Oliva, Rama’s financial adviser.

According to Oliva, Mayor Rama “wants the private sector to guide us.”

Oliva said that public consultation in the  budget preparation is already being done in San Fernando Pampanga.

San Fernando Pampanga also came up with a monitoring office which especially monitors the LGUs tax collection efficiency in order to raise funds to fund their programs and projects.

The Mandaue City government, Oliva said, has also adopted a system where in they group sectoral representatives and assign them to focus on a problem and find solutions to these problems.

Under this set up, the LGU helps quantify how much funding should be set aside for the sectoral group identified projects to address a certain problem.

“LGUs quantify the budget of projects the people want. If the LGU thinks it cannot afford them, we do prioritization based on short term, medium term- long term budgeting goals,” she said.

Oliva said that short term implementation should be done within the budget year while medium term implementation should be within the next three years. Long term projects will be funded and implemented within a period of 10 years.

“Time frame is important so the people will know what to expect and when to expect projects and services that they want,” she added. /Edison A. delos Angeles, Correspondent