Thursday, January 15, 2009 Tomas asks if P21M for Cebu City hospital won’t be useless spending; barangays to get bulk of funds By Linette C. Ramos Sun.Star Staff Reporter
INFRASTRUCTURE projects for the barangays will eat up one-third of the P160-million Local Development Fund (LDF) for this year, while P21.2 million was allocated for the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC).
Acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama welcomed the proposed Annual Investment Program for 2009, but the projects identified will still have to be approved by the Cebu City Development Council (CDC).
Rama said the P21.2-million funding for CCMC is a good start for the improvements he wants to implement, specifically the rehabilitation of the hospital’s facilities, drainage system and fence.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña raised his concern, though, on whether the City’s P21.2 million would be spent wisely if it is invested in the city hospital, which he has repeatedly criticized in the past because of what he described as its management
problems.
City Administrator Francisco Fernandez said that Osmeña was briefed on the proposed AIP projects when the latter called to ask for updates at City Hall.
“He asked why we are appropriating P21.2 million for CCMC. He wants to know whether we think it’s not a waste of money and our answer to that is that it’s a priority project of Acting Mayor Rama and we want to support that,” he said.
In his news conference yesterday, Rama said he expects to see some changes at the CCMC by Feb. 24, when the City celebrates its Charter Day.
“I will be very happy if we can see substantial changes by Feb. 24. We don’t expect everything to be addressed, but at least there should already be some improvements,” he said.
Aside from CCMC, different drainage projects, lot acquisitions and other infrastructure for the barangays will get P60 million of the LDF.
Development projects at the South Road Properties (SRP) will get P30 million, specifically the rehabilitation of the road across the Bigfoot Entertainment complex and the completion of the senior citizens’ building.
Other items in the proposed AIP are asphalting of roads (P10 million), purchase of 14 trucks for south district barangays (P9.8 million), financial assistance to nongovernment organizations (P10 million), gender and development programs (P10 million), Unicef counterpart funds (P4 million) and the City’s deworming project (P2 million.)
