Secretary Rene Almendras said that the funds for the rehabilitation of the Yolanda-stricken areas will be downloaded even before the submission of Post-Disaster Needs Assessment report as the president had already approved certain budgets that no longer need the PDNA.
Out of the P167 billion funds for rehabilitation, P90 million had already been downloaded and the rest of the amount will be downloaded to implementing agencies, some of them to local government units, while some of the budget will be jointly implemented by agencies and LGUs.
Almendras said that the monitoring of the implementation of projects will be done by Rehabilitation Czar, Panfilo Lacson. A team will inspect the areas where the budget was given to find out if it had been used well and properly by implementing agencies or LGUs.
President Aquino announced in his recent State of the Nation Address the approval of rehabilitation programs of local government units including the P12.5-billion for Cebu.
Almendras said that the funding had always been there, only that budget is not immediately released due to check and balance. Everything should be supported with documents.
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