Malabon gov’t approves P1B budget for 2014

For the first time in its history, the Malabon government’s annual budget has reached P1 billion, which the city plans to spend on key areas of investment, including flood control, housing projects and employment and livelihood assistance.

The city council recently enacted the city government’s 2014 budget, which stands at P1,005,324,538.84, a 14.24-percent increase from the P880 million the local government allocated last year.

Mayor Antolin Oreta III said the local government was pinning its hopes on a 20-percent increase in local revenues to generate nearly half of the budget.

“This is the first time that the city government of Malabon has aimed for more than the P1-billion income mark… The revenue-generating offices have crafted viable strategies and measures to achieve this income target,” Oreta said in his budget statement.

Just over half of the city government’s 2014 budget—52 percent—was expected to come from its internal revenue allotment (IRA), which was pegged at P530 million, also up from P478 million in 2013. The IRA represents the local governments’ share of the taxes collected by the national government.

The remaining 48 percent, or about P475 million, was expected to come from local revenue-generating offices.

The city government said it was hoping to gather over P318 million from local taxes, up from its collection of P241 million last year. Nontax revenues have been pegged at P157 million this year.

“We aim to be more aggressive in generating additional revenues so as to enhance the capability of our local government to deliver better social, economic and general services,” Oreta said.

The city government said that projects to be funded by this year’s budget would focus on seven key areas: education; health and social services; security, peace and order; transportation and disaster preparedness; employment and livelihood; informal settlers, housing and community development; environmental management and flood control.

For education, Oreta said the city government was aiming to provide more scholarships for indigent students to further make education accessible to more children. For healthcare, it wanted to maximize available resources and improve healthcare delivery mechanisms such as its health centers.

The mayor also announced plans to expand the local government’s security camera network throughout the city to improve peace and order and its disaster monitoring capabilities.

On the program for informal settlers, the city government said it would “exhaust all efforts to provide decent housing for informal settlers who live in danger zones such as waterways,” as mandated by the national government. Malabon residents can also expect more skills and income-generating training sessions as part of the city’s employment and livelihood policy, it added.

Malabon was also standing firm on implementing environment-related legislation “in light of the worsening impact of climate change.” The campaign would start with the rigorous implementation of the city’s solid waste management code, Oreta said.

He added that the local government would continue to “intensify unclogging programs, drainage repair, and implement infrastructure programs to alleviate flood problems and mitigate risks and danger to people’s lives and properties.”