BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan explained that a re-enacted budget by the national government will surely result to a serious delay in the delivery of social services and the timely implementation of priority development projects that were funded in the proposed appropriations for this year.
The local chief executive pointed out that if the services and projects have been funded under various appropriations in the 2018 national budget, then there will be no problem with their implementation, but if the services and projects have been funded by the proposed appropriations for 2019, then there will be a serious delay in their implementation until such time that Congress will pass the budget when it resumes regular sessions next week.
In the case of calamity projects, he claimed that if the funds for identified calamity projects will be drawn from the calamity appropriations from the 2018 budget, there will be no problem on the implementation of the calamity projects, but if the funds will be drawn from the proposed calamity funds for this year, the same cannot be implemented until such time that the budget will be signed into law by President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
The law requires the national and local governments to allocate 5 percent of their annual budgets purposely for calamity projects identified by the concerned government agencies and the local government.
On the other hand, the law also mandates Congress and the local legislative bodies to pass the corresponding legislative measures to enact the proposed budget of the national and local governments to prevent the operation of a re-enacted budget for the previous year.
However, if the proposed budgets will not be acted upon on the preceding year, the law mandates the enactment of the budget within the first 90 days of the year to avoid the full operation of a re-enacted budget for the duration of the present year.
Domogan added another negative effect of the failure of Congress to pass the budget on time is that nationally paid employees will not yet be able to receive the 4th tranche of the Salary Standardization Law while local governments that enacted their budgets last year like Baguio city will be allowed to provide their officials and employees with the increase in their salaries as mandated under the law.
He claimed as much as possible, budgets must be enacted on time to prevent serious delays in the delivery of basic services to the people and the timely implementation of priority development projects as project implementers must take advantage of the summer months to complete government projects so as not to be unjustly delayed during the rainy season.
For the past several years, the local legislative body has been approving the proposed annual budget of the local government on time thus there were no untoward delays in the implementation of major infrastructure projects and the delivery of basic services except in instances when the delay lay with the tedious bidding process for projects.
By Dexter A. See