Now with all these big plans, can the City Council afford it? Although the council has secured finances from the government and has support from the IDB through a grant, the council's finances can't carry the cost - that's because most of what the city earns is spent on sanitation, not on city planning or development. Director of Finance Marilyn Ordonez gave us the financial outline.
Marilyn Ordonez, Director of Finance
"What the city has done was to secure its funding from the government and have that bond secured with funding that is earmarked and secured. That bond is then managed by the Central Bank so that the residents don't have to worry about that. Bond holders know that their funds are secured. When we look at the financials, what was very striking was that the huge cost that we have is reflected in payroll and sanitation. When we look at the financials, the sanitation costs exceeds payroll, so that's telling us that when we collect our property tax or trade license and all our revenue we are working to deal with garbage. Our cost, revenue, is going to garbage and is that what we want as a city? We need to perhaps revisit that because it means that something is wrong."
The IDB grant is for $1 million US DOLLARS.
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