As part of the department’s efforts to reward high performing local government units (Jesse Robredo of the Department of the Local Interior and Local Government (DILG) said LGUs), Secretary 344 eligible LGUs across the country stand to benefit from a total of P500-million in Performance Challenge Fund (PCF) subsidy this year.
The PCF is a financial incentive awarded to qualified LGUs to jumpstart local development initiatives that are aligned with the national government’s programs for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, tourism and local economic development, disaster risk reduction and management and solid waste management.
“We hope that through the PCF, we will be able to motivate LGUs to further enhance their local government systems and procedures and improve their services to their constituents,” he said.
Projects that may be financed by the PCF include school buildings, rural health units, water and sanitation system, local roads and bridges, slaughterhouses, flood control, reforestation, postharvest facilities, cold storage facilities, among others.
Robredo said that of the P500-M in PCF subsidy, P303M shall go to 303 fourth to sixth class municipalities; P75M to 25 fourth to sixth class cities and P112M to 16 fourth to sixth class provinces. The remaining P10M shall be allocated to higher income LGUs.
The amount of PCF subsidy shall be P1M per municipality, P3M for each city and P7M per province, he said.
Under the guidelines that the Department released recently, the DILG Secretary said that each eligible LGU should provide a counterpart fund that is equal to or greater that the PCF granted by the national government to be sourced from their 20% development fund or from other sources.
“An LGU can receive only one PCF grant but this may be applied to as many projects as the LGU may wish to propose for cost-sharing with the national government,” he pointed out.
To qualify for the PCF, he said LGUs should pass the assessment on good housekeeping and eventually conferred with the Seal of Good Housekeeping (SGH) in key governance areas of planning, fiscal management, transparency and accountability and valuing performance management.
Upon conferment of the SGH, he said eligible LGUs should submit within 30 days a letter of intent along with other documentary requirements such as project proposal, sanggunian resolution allocating counterpart PCF funds, and certification from the budget officer on funds allocation to their respective DILG regional offices.
As soon as the project proposal is approved, the eligible LGU shall then enter into a Memorandum of Agreement with the DILG through the regional director and issued with a certificate of availability of funds, he said.
Since last year, thirty (30) fourth to sixth class municipalities all over the country have already been conferred with the SGH and availed of the PCF. -30- CRD, PIA
