‘Cebu City out of surplus funds’

ANY surplus funds the Cebu City government had in the past few years is now gone, the City Treasurer’s Office admitted yesterday.

In yesterday’s meeting at the office of Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young, acting City Treasurer Tessie Camarillo said the city’s P2 billion in bank deposits have already been “committed” to the general fund.

“There is no surplus funds.  Whatever we have in the bank now was already committed to the general fund,” Councilor Margot Osmeña quoted Camarillo as telling the council in their hour-long briefing.

Osmeña, chairperson of the council’s budget committee, said the council wanted to know why Camarillo pushed for a P674-million loan to fund the city’s second supplemental budget when the city’s funds were placed on time deposits.

Cebu City has deposits with the Philippine Veteran’s Bank (PVB), the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), Banco de Oro (BDO) and Postal Bank (PB).

“There maybe surplus funds before but now no more,” the councilor said.

Still, Councilor Osmeña said she is inclined to believe that the city is not going bankrupt.

“The city could have unspent funds somewhere,” she told Cebu Daily News.

Osmeña said several lump-sum appropriations were included in the P4.5- billion annual budget.

She is confident that a big part of the lump-sum appropriations have remained unspent.

Camarillo explained to the council in yesterday’s closed-door briefing that former city treasurer Ofelia Oliva placed part of the P2 billion in bank deposits as time deposits to earn interest.

“(The council was told by Camarillo that) the money was not needed at the same time so former treasurer Oliva decided to place it on time deposit,” said Councilor Osmeña.

Only a small part of the P2-billion deposit was placed on a long-term time deposit, which is valid for five years.

“Tessie does not know how much is the balance because the funds are assigned to the different (city hall) departments.  She said that she will have to ask the different department first,” the councilor said.

A copy of the supplemental budget was calendered in yesterday morning’s council session.

“We have to have the budget because it includes (appropriations for) salaries,” the councilor said.

Councilor Osmeña said she wanted to assure Mayor Michael Rama, who was expected to arrive in Cebu City late yesterday afternoon from his China trip, that the council won’t become an obstructionist in their stance on the budget.

“We are not here to oppose Mayor Rama but we just want to be prudent.  More than we talk, we also listen,” she said.

Young earlier voiced concern over the “bloated budget” targets set by Oliva.

Young said some City Hall offices like the City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) experienced delayed salaries after they were given collection targets that are far below what they earned last year.

He said Oliva reduced to only P20 million the P70 million subsidy that Citom received from the city each year while increasing their project income from P60 million in 2010 to P100 million this year.