City Hall needs P15M to pay for garbage fees

WITH only a month to go before the year ends, the Cebu City government is P15 million short of its solid waste disposal budget.

Engr. Dionisio Gualiza, head of the Department of Public Services (DPS), explained to the City Council yesterday that the amount is for the tipping fee of the private garbage landfill in Consolacion town.

Without the allocation, the City Hall will have difficulty managing its solid waste as the Inawayan landfill is technically closed and serves only as batching area before the city’s solid waste is brought to Consolation.

Gualiza is also seeking a P102 million budget for next year’s tipping fee, P6.7 million for tires purchase for their garbage trucks and P4 million for deodorizers for the Inayawan sanitary landfill.

The city government is paying the private facility in Consolacion P700 per ton of solid waste.

“Pangitaan ta ni ug paagi nga dili kaayo daku ang atong gasto (on our solid waste management) so we can save money for other basic services in the city,” said Councilor Alvin Dizon. (Let’s find a way to cut cost for garbage fees.)

DPS is seeking a budget of P193.4 million in 2014 for its garbage collection and disposal program.

Gualiza said that their tipping fee budget will have to be increased from P40 million in the 2013 budget to P102 million next year.

So far, the city has allocated P10 million in the supplemental budget 2 to add to its P40 million annual appropriation for the tipping fee.

The city government, Gualiza said, used to dispose about 100 tons of garbage into the Consolacion landfill daily. The volume increased to close to 200 tons with the arrival of their 32 brand new trucks in September.

DPS now has a total of 48 garbage trucks.

They are projecting an 300-ton daily garbage disposal to the Consolacion landfill next month because of the Christmas season.

Councilor Margot Osmeña, the council’s budget committee chairperson, also asked when the city government intends to cease landfill operations.