Summary CitCo revenues/expenses for 2007-2008 not good
When last we checked about the official audit of the Belize City Council’s books by the Ministry of Local Government, we were told it was still not ready. And while the wheels of bureaucracy appear to be churning slow to deliver on the audit called for by one of the councilors, Mark King, last year at the time of the heated U.D.P. convention, there is information available to News Five on CitCo’s finances. And a copy of the summary of the estimates of revenue and expenditures for the fiscal year 2007-2008, is raising eyebrows on the state of the city’s purse. A review of the summary prepared internally at City Hall for Mayor Zenaida Moya shows that the budget estimates were overestimated by twenty-five percent. Mayor Moya expected in recurrent revenue to collect seventeen point four million dollars when indeed and in fact City Hall collected thirteen point seven million, some four million dollars less. The summary shows that main revenue earners never met their target in respect of collection of property tax, trade licenses, markets, courts and tourism related revenue, which is the head tax. The subvention from government also fell to one point three million, fifteen percent less than what the Council actually got in the previous year. And while City Hall collected four million dollars less this year, it plans to collect five million dollars more next year.
On the expenditure side, sixteen point nine million dollars were estimated to be spent but the document shows that instead thirteen point four million were spent mostly in salaries, some four point one million dollars. And if you are wondering why the streets are screaming for help, that is because the city only spent six thousand thirty-eight thousand point even as it projected to spend close to three million dollars in the maintenance of infrastructure and equipment, that’s a seventy-five percent reduction on what was projected and only fifteen percent of planned capital projects were actually completed. In respect of garbage collection that has been a particular thorn for Moya, the council spent five point eight million but garbage collection still remains a serious problem. And if you are wondering how the council is going to spend the extra five million it is going to collect from you in the coming year, well part of it will fund a forty percent increase in staff costs and salaries.
There are other expenditures that stand out, for example the Mayor’s office spent on salaries six hundred and sixty-eight plus while transport and travel expenditures shot up to more than one hundred and fifteen dollars from a projected twenty-five thousand dollars. But more on this tomorrow.
