Thursday, September 13, 2007 Veco to maintain Cebu City streetlights
STARTING this month, Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) will be in charge of installing, repairing, and maintaining all 20,000 street lighting fixtures in Cebu City.
The utility firm will manage the lights for free.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Veco officials, who agreed to provide manpower and equipment free of charge for the installation and maintenance of all streetlights in identified areas in the city.
Only the lighting facilities at the South Road Properties (SRP) and those in public parks are not covered by the agreement.
As specified in the MOA, the City Government will pay the cost of energy consumed by all streetlights and “commits to Veco an annual and sufficient budgetary allocation to ensure prompt payment of electric bills.”
It will also provide the different light fixtures, bulbs and accessories to Veco as buffer stocks for installations and replacements.
Applications
However, the Department of Public Services’ (DPS) Street Lighting Division will still be the one to accept and process all applications for light installation and replacement.
The City will also allow Veco to have access to its inventory of all lighting supplies for monitoring purposes.
Osmeña said yesterday that the arrangement will prevent indiscriminate installations of streetlights by barangay officials. It will also allow the immediate replacement of light bulbs.
“Even when it’s City Hall that installs the connection, it’s not done correctly so it creates low voltage in the area...The immediate response to request for repairs of bulbs is a major problem and Veco will do that for free... Anyway we’re paying them a lot for electricity,” he told reporters.
He said the agreement with Veco will not result in the scrapping of the Street Lighting Division since it has other functions apart from lighting facility repairs. If some employees will be affected, they could be transferred to other City Hall offices, he said.
Cebu City is the first local government unit (LGU) to enter into such an agreement with Veco for the joint maintenance of streetlights.
But Veco Spokesperson Ethel Natera said they are also negotiating with other LGUs within its franchise area for both parties to come up with a similar agreement.
Complaints
Natera said that although Veco only supplies power to the city, the people call the company instead of the City Hall to complain against unlighted alleys and streets.
This, she said, prompted them to offer the service as part of Veco’s corporate social responsibility.
She said they will also fix the streetlights in other places under the company’s franchise area. (LCR with RHM)
