Dagupan hell-bent to reverse dependency on IRA

Dagupan City Administrator Vlad Mata (Extreme Left).

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY- Despite an impending reduction next year of P25 Million from the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA, this city is hell-bent to reverse its dependency on the IRA by sourcing more local revenues.
City Administrator Vladimir Mata said at present this city gets 51 percent of its revenue from the national government and 49 percent is from local sources.
“We want to reverse this set-up by making the local revenues bigger than the external revenues,” the city administrator stressed.
Mata said that Mayor Benjamin S. Lim will cushion the P25 million impending loss for next year from the IRA through an aggressive tax collection, sale of the idle MacAdore Hotel owned by this city, and implement provisions in the Revenue Code that have remain untapped.
The city received a letter from the Department of Budget & Management early this year informing officials about the allotment reduction because of the sluggish economy in 2009. But this city has proposed P576 million budget for 2012. This budget is P8 million higher than this year’s budget of P568 million.
Mata said that the IRA reduction from the national government will not result in the lay-off of some contractual city workers here unlike what Urdaneta City has decided to do.
He opined that the Lim Administration is bullish as evidenced by the proliferations of countless 711 stores that sprouted like mushrooms, the Metro State that houses Manila-based food chains like Mang Inasal, Yellow Cab Pizza, and many new retail business establishments in this coastal city.