AKBAR, BASILAN PROVINCE— The reduction of this year’s National Tax Allotment (NTA) or Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) has affected the Akbar town in Basilan Province.
The municipality of Akbar has only Ten Million (P10,000,000) annual budget and the budget cut as imposed by the national government has further reduced the already small appropriation of said town.
Worse, from ten million, they received P8.5 million for the year, as the national budget is based on the tax revenue collection in 2020.
It was at the height of the Covic pandemic – the economic movement was low.
Given the small budget Mayor Sallih Al says his town will survive “We only have P10-million IRA, that is our budget but we cannot do anything, that is the policy, because we were told that the current year’s budget was based on the tax collection of 2020, our development fund is effected but we will survive, we will not hire personnel and we will spend out budget wisely.”
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) says the National tax Allotment this year is based on the tax collection three years ago.
THE country’s pandemic reduced the National Tax Allotment (NTA) for local government units (LGUs) and local officials must spend the government fund wisely
