P1.42M allotted to hire drainage maintenance people

WITH problems on manpower, the Cebu City Council has allocated P1.42 million for the hiring of more people to do drainage maintenance works in the city.

According to Councilor Jerry Guardo, who proposed the resolution for the amount, this would be used to hire 95 job order (JO) personnel for a period of 44 days to maintain the city’s lines including declogging, desilting, minor construction and repair, and dredging of waterways among others.

But while the amount was already approved by the City Council, this cannot be used yet until a specific project proposal, detailing the actual areas where these maintenance works would be done should be submitted to the council for review and approval.

During the council’s regular session last week, some Barug Team Rama councilors questioned the proposal for being vague.

“Where exactly will they be assigned? The attached project proposal is only general statements like construction of drainage system, repair of existing drainage lines, declogging,” said Councilor Jose Daluz III.

He pointed out that the proposal should be specific so that the city would have basis to determine the results of the use of the funds and to monitor these JOs that would be hired by the city.

Guardo explained that the Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) had already identified the specific areas that would usually be flooded and would need drainage maintenance works.

However, he failed to provide this list during the session.

What was only approved was the augmentation of funds for this purpose but not yet for the actual use of the funds.

In an earlier letter addressed to Councilor Margarita Osmeña, City Engineer Josefa Ylanan explained that for 2017, they had a budget of P4 million for maintenance of drainage system and flood control.

“But due to the lack of manpower, we were able to utilize just P2,386,500 only out of the whole budget allocated to this account,” she said in the letter dated October 27.

This is why Ylanan proposed to use the remaining budget under this account for the hiring of additional personnel instead.

The personnel will be part of what Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña earlier announced as a quick response team that would respond to requests or needs for drainage and flood control-related maintenance works all over the city.

Councilor Guardo was tasked to head the quick response team.