CEBU City councilors are not too happy paying for bills and obligations that date as far back as 2007, and want concerned officials to be sanctioned for not requesting for funds on time.

In the City’s proposed sixth supplemental budget for 2009, some P9 million in prior years’ obligations were requested, including payments for electricity, water and some 300 chickens and three goats for a previous year’s Ramadan celebration.

Other payables from the previous years are reimbursements for travel, communication and transportation expenses of city councilors and other officials, as well as honorarium of barangay workers.

The sixth supplemental budget amounts to P200.4 million, with the largest proposed amount going to the Office of the Mayor at P69.9 million, intended for just compensation for expropriated properties, sports projects and infrastructure projects for the barangays.

During the budget hearing last week, City Councilor Jose Daluz told the department heads to come up with a policy that will discourage officials and employees from submitting their request for funds when the books of accounts for the year have already been closed.

“We should have a policy on this because supposedly, we shouldn’t wait until the books of accounts have been closed because that’s already dereliction of duty.

There should be an incentive for those who meet the deadline, and at the same time a sanction for those who won’t,” he said.

Daluz, chairman of the City Council’s committee on budget and finance, presided over the budget hearing for SB No. 6 amounting to P200.4 million.

The largest amount requested to settle an old account is the P6.28-million payment for electricity consumption for the Pasko sa Carbon, Pasko sa V. Rama and the Parks and Playgrounds Commission for 2007 and 2008.

Close to P800,000 was also requested for financial assistance to Barangay Basak San Nicolas’ funeral services.

Pay

City Administrator Francisco Fernandez said he will issue a memo directing all city officials to file their request for payment or reimbursement on time, to avoid late payments to suppliers.

If they can’t justify the delay in the payment, the amount will be charged to the personal account of the user, he said.

He will also reiterate the deadline for procurement of supplies and services, which is September of each year, to make sure that suppliers are paid on the same year.

Fernandez said that all requests for payment should be covered by the current year’s budget, unless the requesting parties can justify the delay.

He said, though, that there are some unavoidable circumstances, such as payments for electricity, water and telephone lines, whose bills for December arrives in January or February of the following year.

Expenses

“But other than that, I think it’s already negligence if we don’t make the request in time for the closing of the books.

This is also one cause of delayed payments to our suppliers.

So if they don’t do it on time, we will make that a liability of the end-user, if they can’t justify the delay. We will take this more seriously,” Fernandez added.

SB No. 6 will be tackled during the session this Wednesday for final approval, following two budget hearings last week.

Among the proposed items in the budget is the P45.5 million for just compensation for expropriated properties and lot purchases, P15 million for the community micro-assistance program and P5 million for sports development projects, all under the Office of the Mayor.

The Sangguniang Panglungsod proposed P9 million, mostly for the centralized air conditioning.

The City Treasurer’s Office also proposed P21.6 million, mostly for equipment for systems improvement, the largest amount requested by an executive department.