ROXAS City – The Capiz Provincial Board has failed to approve the Annual Performance Budget of the province due to some infractions found on the Annual Investment Plan (AIP), according to Board Member Sonny Besa, chair of the Appropriations Committee.
“The Annual Performance Budget was submitted to us only on Dec. 3, 2019 when in fact it should have been submitted to us on or before Oct. 15. The problem however, is not with the Annual Performance Budget as we are done discussing it in the plenary, but on the AIP because there was a redundancy in some of the infrastructure projects indicated in the AIP,” Besa told Panay News.
“May mga barangay nga may existing project na nga daan for example covered court gym nga gin butangan pa gid sang the same nga project and for us that is double entry,” Besa said.
The Sangguniang Panlalawigan on Jan. 7 passed a resolution requesting Capiz Governor Esteban Contreras to amend some of the infractions that were found in the AIP.
Provincial Administrator Edwin Monares yesterday said Contreras was considering the plan to convene the Provincial Development Council (PDC) but the agenda must be limited only to the projects in question.
Municipal mayors, who are also members of the PDC, said they did not have time to review the AIP since copies of the said document were only given to them the same day a meeting was called for its approval on Nov. 26, 2019.
This prompted Mambusao mayor Leodegario Labao Jr., president of the League of Municipalities (LMP), to write a letter to the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, asking to review “thoroughly and extensively” the AIP before its approval.
“The LMP-Capiz chapter conducted consultation efforts with the concerned Local Chief Executives with the following findings: There is absence of deed of donation and/or deed of usufruct in some of the proposed projects locations; the local chief executives and planning development office of the local government units were not consulted regarding the proposed project for prioritization and recommendation; and there are duplications and redundancy of the proposed projects,” part of the letter said.
The AIP contained over P20 billion worth of programs and projects by the current administration both from the internal and external sources based on estimated revenues and Internal Revenue Allocation of the province.
“Although we are talking of two separate documents here but we cannot act on the passage of one without approving the other,” said Besa./PN
