WITH recent rains highlighting problems of urban flooding in Cebu City, it came as a surprise when the executive department of the Cebu City Hall did not include major drainage projects in its annual budget proposal for 2017.
City Engineer Josefa Ylanan explained that this was because they still needed to implement pending drainage projects whose budgets had been earlier approved.
“We have several flood-mitigating projects which are still pending because we just finished the POWE (program of works and estimates). So we will implement that before we will submit another budget for any drainage project,” she said.
According to City Budget Officer Marietta Gumia, the city still had a budget of P1.5 billion for drainage under its approved budget for 2015; but none of this was used during the administration of former mayor, Michael Rama.
Former City Engineer, Jose Marie Poblete, explained that back then that they had wanted to wait for a comprehensive drainage master plan either by the city or through Mega Cebu before preparing POWEs for the budget so that their proposals will be in line with the master plan.
A total of P122.4 million worth of infrastructure projects have been included under the Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) in the proposed P7.2 billion annual budget.
The only drainage-related projects under the DEPW’s budget proposal were those accompanying new road concreting projects –located in the city’s mountain barangays.
“There have been heavy rains almost every afternoon and people are experiencing flooding. I’m encouraging the executive department that the city should focus its resources especially on flood control projects,” said Cebu City Councilor Jerry Guardo who heads the council’s committee on infrastructure.