MERCADO
The dry spell may end in June this year, but Cebu City Hall has yet to build water basins or catchment facilities it promised to farmers in upland barangays since last year.
City Administrator Lucelle Mercado said contractors aren’t enthusiastic about building water catchment facilities due to their low cost and the remote location of the recipients.
Two biddings for the P9.99-million project — one last year and another this year — were declared a failure.
“It’s not a very big come-on for contractors because one unit doesn’t cost as much, considering that it will be done in the mountains and tuyoonon kaayo (they’re hard to reach),” she said.
If there is still no interested contractor Mercado said the city government may opt to administratively implement the project with the respective barangays.
Since City Hall lacks project engineers and personnel, Merc ado said they will have to ask the barangays to provide labor for the project.
Mercado said the city conducted other mitigation measures like the distribution of water hoses, barrels and tanks.
Mercado said water catchments can still be used to store water for barangays that don’t have a water source.
Based on the approved Program of Works and Estimates (POWE) by the Office of the City Engineer, each catchment facility which can hold 170 cubic meters of water, costs P117,332.
Mercado said three of these water catchment facilities were supposed to be built in each of the city’s 28 upland barangays.
During the city’s first Water Summit in May last year, City Agriculturist Joelito Baclayon told farmers about the plan to build water catchment facilities as part of the city’s efforts to mitigate the impact of the El Niño phenomenon.
Under the proposed design, each of the catchment will be 10 meters by 11 meters big and 1.55 meters deep.
“Contractors want bigger projects. So it’s not attractive to them,” Mercado said.
She said one of the city government’s plans is for the city to enter into a negotiated bidding with smaller contractors who might be interested in undertaking the water catchment project.