Bizmen to ask government to allow regional chambers to take part in IRA allocation

By Max V. de Leon

FILIPINO businessmen will petition the government to allow the different regional business chambers throughout the country to participate in the allocation of the internal revenue allotments (IRAs) given to local government units (LGUs).

Donald Dee, chairman of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), said this will be among the initiatives that the group is lining up this year to ensure that there will be no wastage of precious government funds.

“The local chambers will make sure that the IRA funds will be diverted only to projects with economic viability and will really help the community,” Dee told the BusinessMirror.

He said the need to participate in the allocation of IRA was brought up by the different local chambers during the PCCI’s regional consultations.

The PCCI national officials, Dee said, support this initiative and will be creating a steering committee that will study how to implement this and coordinate with the concerned government agencies.

He said the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) will probably just come out with an order directing the LGUs to include the business chambers in their respective localities in the process of identifying projects that will be funded by IRA.

Dee said the different regional chambers are aware that some LGUs are not using well their share of the taxes collected by the national government because of poor selection of projects.

The PCCI’s focus this year, Dee said, is the empowerment of the LGUs and their small and medium enterprises that they are hosting.

Aside from this, Dee said the PCCI will continue to monitor all the priority infrastructure projects identified by President Arroyo in her previous State of the Nation Address, and see to it that these are pushing through smoothly.

Dee said the business community is glad that the administration has implemented the recommendation to come up with multiyear allocation for the priority infrastructure projects that include major airports, road networks in Mindanao and farm-to-market roads.

“This will allow predictability, unlike in the previous years when the budget is prepared on a yearly basis and you can’t be sure if the funding will continue the following year,” Dee said.

Also, to help the small businesses in the provinces, Dee said the PCCI is opening up a loan facility, with the initial funding coming from the officials of the group.

Aside from lending funds, member-companies of the PCCI have also committed to buy the output of the small enterprises that they will be supporting.

This project, he said, will kick off in Aklan and Iloilo, with at least P3 million already collected from PCCI officials.

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Bizmen to ask government to allow regional chambers to take part in IRA allocation

FILIPINO businessmen will petition the government to allow the different regional business chambers throughout the country to participate in the allocation of the internal revenue allotments (IRAs) given to local government units (LGUs).

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