By Mortz C. Ortigoza
According to a document signed by Bureau of Local Government Supervision OIC Director Debie V. Torres, CESO V, the LGUs are Agno, Aguilar, Alcala, Anda, Asingan, Balungao, Bani, Basista, Bautista, Bayambang, Binalonan, Binmaley, Bolinao, Bugallon, Burgos, Dasol, Infanta, Labrador, Laoac, Lingayen, Mabini, Malasiqui, Manaoag, Mangaldan, Mangatarem, Mapandan, Natividad, Pozorrubio, Rosales, San Fabian, San Jacinto, San Manuel, San Nicolas, San Quintin, Sta. Barbara, Sto. Tomas, Santa Maria, Sison, Sual, Tayug, Umingan, Urbiztondo and Villasis.
The requirements for passing the
SGFH are: (1) the most recent available Commission on Audit (COA) audit opinion
and (2) compliance with the Full Disclosure Policy by posting all required
financial documents in three conspicuous places and in the FDP portal.
The SGFH is one of the three core components to hurdle the most challenging award body’s Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) where an LGU should pass all the three components of Good Financial Housekeeping, Disaster Preparedness, and Social Protection and one of the three essential components in either of the business friendliness and competitiveness, peace and order and environmental management. It is dubbed as “3 + 1”.
The achievement of a province, city,
or province of the Good Housekeeping component means that the local government
can be allowed to contract bank loans and access more national government
funding such as the Bottom-Up Budgeting Program (the precursor of the
Assistance to Disadvantaged Municipalities program). The financial incentives
for local government passers are indispensable because most local governments
are still highly dependent on their national tax allotment (NAT) (the successor
of the internal revenue allotment (IRA) ) which is the automatic share of local
government budgets from the national budget, and are not fully able to generate
local income to sustain their basic administrative and service delivery
functions.
The increasing awareness of LGU officials about
the technicalities of service delivery laws was an added value by itself. The
motivation that makes public officials strive to hurdle the SGFH and the SGLG
was the prestige and the “peer pressure”. Local governments put up big
tarpaulins announcing their SGLG win particularly in their localities, as a
testament to their performance. Governors and mayors would confer with each
other if each had won their Seals otherwise they would be pressured to “not get
left behind”. It is a race for exemplary local government performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment