LOCAL government units hurting over the fact that they would have a greatly reduced share of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) in 2012, need not worry because it is a temporary situation that is bound to improve next year and the years to follow.
This was the statement of Congressman Isidro Ungab, representative of Davao City’s 3rd congressional district, when asked to comment on the decrease of the LGU budget for 2012. Ungab is the vice chair of the House committee on appropriations assigned to study the annual budgets of revenue-earning agencies such the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Bureau of Customs and the Department of Finance, among others.
The lawmaker said leaders of Davao can look forward to bigger shares of the IRA in 2013 and onwards because of the substantial improvement in the income of tax collection agencies in 2010 and 2011.
He said the reduction in IRA next year resulted from the low tax collection efficiency of the national government in 2009 in the case of all LGUs and the creation of 16 new cities in the case of old cities.
“But these will all change for the better in 2013 and future years because of the highly improved tax collections by the national government,” Ungab said.
He lauded the no-nonsense effort of the Aquino government in cleaning up the traditionally corrupt agencies of the government and in running after those who are suspected of pocketing billions of pesos in public funds through scams and anomalous implementation of programs.
The matuwid na landas governance of President Noynoy Aquino is beginning to reap handsome dividends in terms of the influx of foreign and domestic big-time investments in business and development projects, Ungab said.
“Most importantly, the confidence of the people in government and their leaders is steadily returning,” he said.
Ungab and other Mindanao leaders in Congress worked hard to increase the share of Mindanao in the annual budget from 27 percent in 2011 to 32.8 percent in 2012.
He also said that projects of Davao City have tremendously increased in number and value. [AMA]
