BAGUIO CITY—The City Treasury Office has confirmed getting higher income from the temporary night market along Harrison road than leaseholders of market stalls at the public market which are paying fixed rent.
City Treasurer Alex Cabarrubias claimed there were 1,044 night market vendors doing business along the 500-meter stretch of the Harrison road every night with each paying to the local government P350 every week.
For this year, the night market operation, which is only good for nine and one half months because of the non-operation of the vendors for at least two and one half months due to the rains and typhoons, was able to generate at least P14.9 million.
But Cabarrubias said the 1,890 stalls in the public market, the nearly 800 stalls in Blocks III and IV and the over 970 stalls in the relocation site account for an annual income for the city P26 million which makes it appear the city is not actually earning enough from the nearly 3,000 market stalls.
He disclosed there were some leaseholders in the market who pay to the city only P90 per month while there others pay at least P3,000 in monthly rentals depending on the size of their stalls.
Officials said there was therefore a need to revisit the fees charged by the local government as market stalls renbtal.
According to Cabarrubias, the over 1,500 stalls in Blocks III and IV and the relocation site account for a total of P9 million in annual income while the nearly 1,900 stalls in the city’s public market account for only P17 million annual income for the city.
He claimed the fees being charged by the city from leaseholders of the various stalls in the public market have not been revised since 1988, thus, the need for the local government to already update its revenue code to conform with the prevailing trend of the times.
By next year, the local treasury office projected it would be able to generate at least P30 million from the fixed rentals of existing market stalls in the public market, Blocks III, IV and the identified relocation site while it also forecasted an income of P14.5 million from the operation of the night market for nine and one half months.
Cabarrubias said it was easy to predict the income to be generated by the local government from the rentals of the market stalls because what the leaseholders were paying were fixed rates.