Davide streamlines purse, slashes hospital budget

The budget for Cebu’s district and provincial hospitals were cut to P294.7 million for next year’s proposed budget, or P134 million lower than the P429.5 million budgeted for this year.

All district hospitals in the province received smaller allocations except for the Juan Diosdado Memorial Hospital in Sogod town whose budget went up by a million pesos.

“We are submitting a lean but efficient budget with the end goal of achieving excellent services at least cost. We raised instead the budget for hiring medical professionals via outsourcing or job orders,” Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III said.

Among the hospitals that suffered budget cuts are the Balamban provincial hospital which received P28 million or P34 million lower than its 2013 budget of P62 million.

The budget for Danao City’s provincial hospital was cut to P38 million from P71.8 million while the provincial hospital in Carcar City will receive P30 million next year or P29 million lower this year.

Davide earlier described this year’s budget, which was prepared under the administration of then governor Gwendolyn Garcia, as “bloated.”

Davide’s proposed budget for 2014 is P1 billion lower than this year’s P3.6 billion budget. He said the amount was based on the province’s estimated collectibles and payables for the next budget year.

“Managing our cash to finance our current programs, projects and activities, with the cash deficit at the beginning of this year due to huge payables is one of the challenges this administration is facing,” he said. “Thus, in order not to hamper our current operation, we may avail of credit line facility to meet these obligations or to augment our depleted resources,” Davide added.

Davide’s administration inherited P789-million worth of payables mostly from contracts of infrastructure projects that lack approval from the Provincial Board (PB).

Also included in the annual budget is Capitol’s P407-million Annual Investment Plan (AIP) which prioritized roads, bridges and highway construction at P113 million.

A close second priority is subsidy to local government units or towns and component cities at P110.5 million. Almost half of the P113 million infrastructure plan or P53 million is for the purchase of heavy equipment while another P30 million is for farm to market roads. In the 2014 annual budget, social services gets the bulk of the funds with P1.379 billion. The budget for the governor’s office went down by P158 million from P599 million this year to P440 million in 2014.