Wednesday, October 08, 2008 Beneco offers to take over city streetlights
THE Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) offered to maintain and repair Baguio City's dilapidated streetlights, for three to six months.
The proposal is to prove the cooperative's efficiency in maintaining and managing streetlights, which is currently handled by the City Engineers Office (CEO).
After the experimental period, city officials may decide whether to allow Beneco to permanently manage streetlights or for the CEO to remain maintaining more than 5,000 streetlights all over Baguio.
It will be the barangay officials who will validate how the Beneco handled the maintenance of streetlights, Beneco General Manager Gerardo Verzosa said.
During the period, the city will not pay for the cost of repair and installation of fixtures of busted streetlights. The proposal is also to show the city is able to maximize the more than P300,000 it spends monthly for the consumption of streetlights alone.
The streetlights will operate for 10 burning hours.
Beneco personnel who are available for 24 hours and also during holidays will man the streetlights for the duration of the experiment.
Barangay officials meanwhile signed a manifesto asking Beneco to manage the city's streetlights. Compared to the CEO, Councilor Joel Alangsab said personnel of the cooperative are easier to contact every time barangays require repairs or replacement of fixtures as they are not bound by the five-day, eight-hour work a week.
The proposal, however, is too good to be true for Councilor Perlita Chan-Rondez. She suggested for Beneco to offset the power generated from Asin hydro power plants, for the city to further cut down on the cost of electricity.
Verzosa disagreed, saying a system allowing the offsetting of power consumption has to be approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). (RO)
