Uncollected garbage in the street of Urgello.
Cebu City Hall trash budget ran out in August; How long will fresh funds take?
Since August, City Hall has not released funds for garbage disposal services in Cebu City. The budget is exhausted, said officials.
This explains the increasing scenes of uncollected household and commercial waste in street corners and roads.
For now, the task falls on the city’s 80 barangays to find a way to cope using their small-sized garbage trucks, many of them in need for repair.
Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella yesterday said he is asking the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) to do their best to ensure that garbage collection is unhampered.
“We are appealing to barangay officials through ABC president Phillip Zafra to double efforts of barangay garbage collectors kay lisod man gyud (it’s very difficult). We are in a predicament where we don’t have funds to pay,” Labella told reporters yesterday.
He repeated his appeal to the Cebu City Council to break its impasse on Supplemental Budget No. 1 and approve the P2.8-billion outlay, which includes P87 million for the city’s garbage collection and disposal program.
Labella is acting mayor this week after Mayor Michael Rama left for Yokohama, Japan to attend the 4th Asia Smart City Conference sponsored by Japan’s ministry of environment.
The problem of slow or non-collection of trash has been frustrating urban residents in north and south districts of the city for months.
WORN-OUT TRUCKS
Barangay officials, in turn, lamented the condition of their small garbage trucks, saying they are dilapidated, inadequate and worn-out by daily road trips to Polog, Consolacion town where their vehicles are not built for going uphill dirt roads with heavy loads.
Plastic bags of uncollected trash make it difficult to move around the in sitio Maracas, barangay Lahug, Cebu City. Even the service roads are blocked these eyesores. where are the Garbage Trucks?
Tisa barangay captain Phillip Zafra, who heads the ABC-Cebu City, said they will strive to collect a bigger volume of waste in every round of collection.
He confirmed the problem is more serious in southern villages because they are farther from Consolacion.
Services of private haulers and a private transfer station to relieve the barangays are supposed to be arranged.
Acting Mayor Labella said a public bidding was already conducted for this but without the approval of funds under SB No. 1, the city can’t issue a Notice of Award to the winning bidder.
Since January’s closure of the Inayawan sanitary landfill in compliance with environment laws banning open dumpsites, Cebu City has had to rely on transporting its solid waste over 12 kilometers to a private landfill in the uplands of northern Consolacion town.
But funds have run out.
A P127-million annual budget for tipping fees and private haulers was slashed to P50 million by the City Council. The fund was fully spent last April.
In May, an additional P51 million was approved for the Department of Public Services (DPS). The money lasted till August.
Garbage used to be collected three to four times a day, explained Vice Mayor Labella.
Now it’s down to once a day because a barangay truck goes directly to the dumpsite in Consolacion town. There’s less time to return to the barangay to make more rounds to collect trash.
A private hauler is paid P1,500 per ton of waste transported to Consolacion. Another P700 per ton is paid to the private landfill operator as tipping fee.
If City Hall and barangay garbage trucks go directly to Consolacion – skipping the service of private haulers – the city would spend less or P700 million. But the consequence is fewer rounds of collection from households and other users in the barangay.
“Whoever won the bidding, we will just ask them to allow us to pay for their services later because I’m confident the City Council will eventually approve the supplemental budget,” said Labella.
STALLED BUDGET
One of the reasons garbage isn’t being properly collected is the non-approval of the supplementary budget which sets aside P87 million for tipping fees, said Jade Ponce, head of the city’s Solid Waste Management Board (SWMB).
SB No. 1 has been stalled in the City Council by critics of Mayor Rama since its submission in August over questions about the legality of the fund source with political undertones as well due to next year’s election.
The unprecedented P2.8-billion budget, funded by income from the recent sale of SRP lots, is intended mainly to pay-off the Japanese loan for the reclamation project with P2.4 billion.
Rama’s critics in the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK)-controlled council, say the mode of land disposal — public auction – violates a previous ordinance, an issue recently brought to court, but the objection is widely seen as a tactic to stop Rama’s administration from big spending in the run-up to a reelection campaign.
A chunk of P438 million or six percent of the proposed budget goes to various expenses, including P87 million to the DPS for garbage collection and disposal and P62.6 million for employees’ incentives.
A transfer station cuts the travel time. Barangay trucks only have to bring their trash to the station and the bulk will be transported by private haulers to Consolacion.
Ponce said even north district barangays are having garbage collection problems.
He identified barangays Sambag 1, Guadalupe, Lahug and Pahina Central, among others.
He pointed to non-functioning or poorly maintained garbage trucks in some barangays.
“But we have to continue. We are looking for other ways. DEPW is helping with its four trucks. We hope this is only temporary. The SWMB policy recommendation is that the city should have a transfer station.”
He asked the public to do its part by reducing waste produced at home and workplaces. Know the schedule of trash collection in your barangay, he said.