City garbage collectors head to the city’s transfer station at the Inayawan landfill to dispose garbage that they collected from the barangays.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA
Cebu City’s P40-million garbage contract with Pasajero Motors Corporation (Pamocor) will already end next week.
Roberto Cabarrubias, head of the Department of Public Services (DPS), said City Hall needed to enter into a new contract with a service provider that will haul the city’s garbage from the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill transfer station to a private garbage facility located in Consolacion town.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña is proposing the use of a P26.8 million allocation from the city’s share of Pagcor funds to take care of the city’s garbage disposal needs for the month of August.
But can City Hall use Pagcor funds for garbage disposal?
Councilor Jose Daluz III of Barug Team Rama does not think so.
Daluz said Pagcor guidelines do not include garbage hauling as among the government activities that may be funded from Pagcor funds.
“At first glance, we can say that it’s covered because it says for ‘collection of garbage.’ But the guidelines say that the collection of garbage should be from sewers and canals. So, regular garbage collection is not included,” Daluz said.
Legislators tackled during their session on Tuesday afternoon, a draft resolution by Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) Councilor Eugenio Gabuya Jr. proposing the use of P26.8 million from the city’s Pagcor funds share to pay for the service of a garbage hauler for the month of August.
City Hall gets a monthly share of P4 million from the operation of casinos in the city.
Daluz called the Council’s attention on Item 1(d) of the Pagcor guidelines which states that among the qualified projects is “declogging of and collection of garbage and debris in sewers and canals,” among others.
Wanting to further study the matter, councilors agreed to defer discuss on Gabuya’s resolution in next week’s session.
The Cebu City government has so far allocated P152 million for garbage disposal from January to July or P20 million more than its P132 million budget in 2016.
Another P151.2 million was included in the recently approved Supplemental Budget 1 amounting to a total of P700 million, to take care of garbage disposal until the end of the year.
But even with the inclusion of additional funds in SB 1, Cabarrubias said, there is a need for City Hall to pursue its emergency procurement plans using the P26.8 million Pagcor allocation.
The use of City Hall funds for the procurement of goods and services would take at least a month to process while emergency procurement can be done the soonest possible time, said Cabarrubias.
Cabarrubias said they are now waiting for the council to authorize the use of Pagcor funds for garbage disposal before the city’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) could award a new contract to a new service provider.
Ronaldo Malacora, BAC head, said they already completed their canvass of garbage haulers. He said that Pamocor offered the lowest contract price to City Hall.
“But we cannot award the contract yet because the charging to the Pagcor funds has not been approved,” he said.
Cabarrubias said that even if the city’s contract with Pamocor ends next week, they will also have to continue to haul the city’s garbage to Consolacion town to cover for the days when they suspended garbage hauling services because of heavy raining.