GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Nov. 12 (PNA) — The national government has released around PHP208-million in grants to South Cotabato province in the last two years through the Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB) scheme.
Lailyn Ortiz, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) provincial director, said Thursday came from the BUB allocations of various national government agencies from 2014.
“The funds were utilized in the implementation of various infrastructure, livelihood and socio-economic projects,” she said.
Ortiz said the involved agencies are the departments of Agriculture, Trade and Industry, Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources, Social Welfare and Development, Education, Agrarian Reform, Labor and Employment and Health, and the National Electrification Administration and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
She said all 10 towns and lone city of the province received project allocations under the program.
Koronadal City topped the list of recipients with PHP30 million, followed by Lake Sebu with PHP28.5 million, Polomolok with PHP24 million, T’boli with PHP22.3 million, Surallah with PHP17.05 million, Banga with PHP17 million, Norala and Sto, Nino with PHP15 million, Tampakan with PHP14.7 million, Tantangan with PHP13.5 million and Tupi with PHP11 million.
The implemented projects include farm-to-market roads, livelihood projects, supplemental feeding, health facilities enhancement, skills and entrepreneurial development, organic farming, technical vocational training and other infrastructure projects.
“Some of these projects are already completed, some are ongoing and some are in the pipeline for implementation,” Ortiz said.
BUB is a planning and budgeting approach in the formulation of the budget proposals of government agencies, taking into consideration the development of poor cities and municipalities as identified in their respective local poverty reduction action plans as endorsed by the basic sectors and civil society organizations.
The implementation of the bottom-up planning and budgeting for the fiscal year budget preparation was mainly aimed at further reducing the poverty incidence in the country in consonance with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
Started in 2013, it engages 300 to 400 poorest municipalities in crafting community-level poverty reduction and empowerment plans.(PNA)