The announcement was made by Mayor Sara Duterte during her Special Hours program over 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio (DCDR) on Monday (Dec 27).
“For 2022, good news for Davao City, this will be the last year that we will pay debts. After the second half of 2022, Davao City will be debt-free," the mayor said.
She said the city usually pays over P200 million a year for loans.
"After that, in the annual budget of 2023, we won't be paying interests or principal in our loans so that approximately P200 to P300 million will be free for use," Sara said.
A clean bill from loans is just one of the good developments amid the coronavirus pandemic, she said.
The city recently ranked 8th richest city in the Philippines, based on the consolidated 2020 Annual Financial Report for Local Government Units (LGUs) of the Commission on Audit (COA).
"That is very factual, based on Davao City records," Sara said.
COA in its report indicated that Davao City’s wealth was at P23.664 billion with current assets (CA) of P14.172 billion and non-current assets (NCA) of P9.493 billion.
Quezon City was the richest city with P452.333 billion followed by Makati City (P238.464B) in second, Manila (P76.548B) third, Pasig (49.510B) fourth, Cebu (P34.754B) fifth, Mandaue (P32.570B) sixth, Taguig (P30.682B) seventh, Caloocan (P22.203B) ninth, and Zamboanga (P19,775B) 10th.
According to her, this is one of the topics that she will be highlighting in her last State of the City Address (SOCA) on January 24, 2022.
Sara was supposed to deliver her SOCA on December 20, 2021, but moved it early next year to sympathize with the people affected by Typhoon Odette in Visayas and Mindanao.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Ang