City Councilor Annabeth Cuizon, who chairs the committee on finance, told SunStar Cebu Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, that the P3,141,330,761 proposed budget includes funds for the operations of the hospital and market and slaughterhouse, which are special accounts.
Of the amount, Cuizon said the mayor proposed P2.8 billion for the general fund.
The councilor said the City Development Council already approved Monday, Oct. 10, the proposed Annual Investment Plan (AIP) of the office of the mayor.
Cuizon said the City Council is set to tackle the proposed budget during its regular session Wednesday, Oct. 19.
In his social media post, Chan said they had allocated a budget to solve problems in the city, particularly the flooding, traffic, uncollected garbage, informal settlers, as well as the repair of government facilities that were damaged by Typhoon Odette (Rai) last December.
“We allocated funds for the resolution of the problems of the city included in our priorities such as the problem of flooding, through our drainage projects; traffic, through the making of diversion roads; garbage, through the purchase of additional garbage trucks; informal settlers, through their relocation to safer areas; and finally, the repair of government facilities destroyed by Odette,” Chan said in Cebuano.
During Chan’s first term, his office proposed in 2021 a P3 billion budget for this year, but it was not approved by the previous City Council dominated by members of the opposition party, allies of then Lapu-Lapu City Lone District representative Paz Radaza, who was defeated by Chan in the May 9 elections.
The City had been using the reenacted 2021 budget amounting to P2.7 billion before the new City Council approved the budget a week after assuming its official duties.