Wise spending

In questioning the purchase of P15 million worth of security cameras and the planned acquisition of a P20 million walking excavator, the City Council is merely doing its job of keeping tabs of every centavo of tax money spent for the city’s behalf.

Notwithstanding Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s re-election, the City Council still has a role to play and a most valuable one at that, as check and balance of the executive, to make sure that public funds are being spent the way they ought to be and that is prudently.

Barely had the smoke of election battles cleared when the Cebu City government was taken to task by the Commission on Audit (COA) for spending P1 billion more than its projected budget.

Auditors also questioned the mayor’s juggling of funds for purposes other than what they were intended – bonuses for teachers taken from funds intended for construction and repairs of classrooms for example.

With the onset of the rainy season this week, the city government wants to buy a P20 million excavator that would be useful to declog creeks, except that it has yet to secure approval from the City Council.

While the council had been nitpicking and even eroding several of the mayor’s ambitious programs, the COA report showed the wisdom of reining in planned expenditures by comparing it with actual revenue collection over projected revenue targets.

In a radio interview, Councilor Margot Osmeña repeated that the council composed mostly of Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) allies are not obstructionists but just following the right procedures when it questioned the camera purchase and the planned acquisition of the P20 million excavator.

While the purchase of cameras is listed in the city’s budget, Osmeña has a point in insisting that the purchase needs council approval based on requirements of the Departments of Budget and Management and the Interior and Local Governments.

If the swamp excavator is a valid need to ease flash floods, and cash flow in City Hall is properly managed, there should be no delay in approving its purchase.

Given the history of animosity between Rama and the council, we hope housekeeping matters like this are treated objectively and with dispatch.

With the election behind us, there is no need for protracted debate. If there are questions raised, respond. If there are more documents required, comply. Day to day governance requires a conversation among reasonable adults.

This is now the second round for Rama and the council. Despite his mandate, the mayor simply cannot throw his weight around the same way that his political foes used to do when he had very few allies to lean on.

While securing the approval of the Cebu City Development Council, before securing the council’s approval may seem like so much red tape, it is still an essential check and balance that any chief exectuive has to observe to make sure that public funds are spent wisely and in full view of the public.