Wednesday, March 05, 2008 SP body to attend DCWD exec-legislative forum By Grace L. Plata
THE Davao City council committee on government enterprises and privatization will attend the executive-legislative forum spearheaded by the Davao City Water District (DCWD) slated Wednesday despite the calls of a consumer group to "rebuff" the forum.
Councilor Jose Louie Villafuerte, who chairs the committee, said he would attend the forum to gather information for future action and policies the committee will propose to the City Council.
It can be recalled that Villafuerte's committee has set hearings to discuss DCWD's proposed 100-million loan. The DCWD management, however, only attended the first hearing and failed to attend the subsequent ones saying in a letter that they will be calling for an executive-legislative forum themselves in lieu of the SP committee hearings.
Consumer-Alert, the consumer group that requested the government enterprises committee to investigate the proposed loan urged the members of the City Council to "rebuff" DCWD's forum saying the City Council "has no obligation to respond to any proposition that DCWD's management is presenting under its own terms and conditions."
"We only want to remind the City Council of its power to exercise control over DCWD as it is guaranteed under the enabling statutes. Public enterprise like DCWD generally enjoy considerable autonomy, bet they nevertheless are subject to legislatorial and government controls because in many cases their funds are derived from the State, which is primarily the people's money," Consumer-Alert convener and Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Davao City Water District (Namadacwad) chair Rudy Aranjuez said in a printed statement given to the media Tuesday.
According to Aranjuez, the inquiry initiated by Villafuerte's committee was good enough to begin with.
"We believe that the forum only means to influence bias for DCWD's proposals and we urge the City Council to dissatisfy such mechanism. The fact that the organizers of the forum have delimited the participation of legitimate water consumers, all the more that we have to doubt their real intentions," Aranjuez said.
"It is high time that the City Council, as a government institution, acts authoritatively to compel accountability on the part of DCWD," Aranjuez said.
Villafuerte, however, said he would just wait and see what happens during today's forum and decide from there. (With Press release)
