Wednesday, June 18, 2014

On the Fiscal Autonomy and Responsibility of Local Government Units

0 comments
Recently, a Rappler news article reported of the Bureau of Internal Revenue's (BIR) shaming of provinces being too dependent on national government allocation without developing their own local revenue generation sources.

"In its latest Tax Watch ad released Wednesday, June 18, BIR said that locally sourced income (LSI) of 56 of 80 provinces accounted for less than 15% of their regular income in 2013," the article reads.

It has been 20 years since the enactment of the Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991. The code primarily sought to institutionalise genuine and meaningful autonomy for local government units (LGUs) after problematic years of politico-administrative centralization in the nation’s capital of Manila. It transferred to LGUs significant responsibilities and powers of service delivery, regulatory enforcement and fiscal policy. The ultimate rationale of the LGC of 1991 being as LGUs are the government institutions that are spatially and knowledgeably closest to the people, they are the most efficient and democratic mechanism of governance at the grassroots.

The code however, as the news report proves, has largely failed in its purpose. Over twenty years into decentralization in the Philippines, the promises of the LGC and decentralisation have been hampered by numerous problems and drawbacks. At large, the problems have been on the fiscal side; fiscal decentralisation in the Philippines for the past twenty years has not produced capable and genuinely autonomous LGUs. Despite the significant resources given through the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) and taxing powers, evidence suggests the lack of sharp improvements in service delivery, decreasing local budget shares of devolved functions such as in health and social welfare and de-incentivised local revenue generation.

Much of the failures of decentralisation in achieving genuine autonomy, efficiency and effectiveness at the local level have been caused by the unforeseen and unintended consequences of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).  As the IRA’s share in the total LGU income increased through the years, local tax revenue and nontax revenue shares have decreased. There are simple political and economic explanations for such a trend. Politically, it is only logical for local politicians to rely on the IRA instead of taxing his constituents which might cause unpopularity. Economically, the dependence on IRA is a result of the absence of a tax base for local revenue generation in most LGUs.

The local fiscal capacity of LGUs is grossly lacking. Most LGUs simply do not have wide enough of a tax base to generate revenue. According to World Bank data, LGUs with relatively more narrow tax bases such as provinces and municipalities, when compared to cities, receive 46 percent and 47 percent of the cost of devolved functions, respectively. Further, they divide the pie of the IRA with more players when compared to cities. An anecdotal account of the Mayor of Valenzuela City Sherwin Gatchalian the problems with the technicalities of the tax system. He explains that San Miguel Corporations largest brewery is located in his city while the head office is in Pasig City. The only tax revenues Valenzuela City gets from the corporation are real property taxes. The huge sales of the corporation that can amount to billions of pesos are taxed in Pasig City because the corporation is registered there. Mayor Gatchalian justifiably complains “San Miguel uses Valenzuela roads; San Miguel uses the groundwater of Valenzuela; its employees, a thousand of them, attend our schools, use our health centers, but we do not get anything from its sales.”

A reformulation of the IRA, however, cannot solve the problem of local misallocation of funds. The problem moves beyond technicalities to now become a politico-governance issue. The already limited resources of LGUs are often easily misspent; resources are often spent on projects that provide the most visible impact such as basketball courts with backboards declaring the politicians name or the welcome signs found at boundaries. The allocation of resources are “likely to be based more on electoral considerations than technical assessments” (Hutchroft, 2012). Further, local executives are “budget dictators” who hold the power of the purse over councilors. He further notes that coupled with high proportion of local spending in personnel, mayors utilise a spoils system where patronage is the basis of who he hires within the city hall, with complete disregard for civil service laws. With national political figures as the patrons of local executives, the fiscal problems of LGUs are ultimately a problem of national patronage.

So how do we begin to address such problems?

Book IV, Title II, Section 521 of the Local Government Code provides:
“SECTION 521. Mandatory Review Every Five Years. - Congress shall undertake a mandatory review of this Code at least once every five (5) years and as often as it may deem necessary, with the primary objective of providing a more responsive and accountable local government structure.”
Two decades and three administrations have passed yet no comprehensive review and amendments have been made on the LGC of 1991. Fortunately, in another Rappler news report, a $250-million loan approved by the Asian Development Bank on February 13, 2014 will make a review of the 20 year old LGC finally possible. Any review and corresponding amendments to the LGC of 1991 must take into account not only the efficiency and economic aspect of the code, but especially its political outcomes and consequences. The problems of efficiency in the IRA must be placed in context of a larger patronage structure.

First, the IRA must be reformulated to be performance-based and with respect to resources-to-functions ratio; LGUs with the least local resources such as tax bases and greater share of functions and constituent needs must be given a higher share in the IRA. Such a measure will, at best, solve the problems of dependence, local revenue generation lag, deterioration of public services delivery and gerrymandering. As for the governance aspect, stricter transparency and accountability measures that look beyond just mid-term elections must be set in place to counter the authoritarian-like rule of the local politician. Institutions outside the state apparatus such as media must be strengthened at the local level to provide a feasible challenger to the monopoly of power local executives. Policy makers must be careful not to focus too much on the economic and efficiency issue of the LGC; a politically insensitive reform will not yield any desired economic outcome. In the final analysis, while these practical measures may curb unwanted tendencies and patterns at the local level, only a national-level political reform that destroys the systematic patronage structure of the Philippine state can any decentralisation framework genuinely achieve its purpose.
Read full post »
 

Copyright © People, Perceptions and Politics Design by Free CSS Templates | Blogger Theme by BTDesigner | Powered by Blogger