Monday, December 05, 2005
Malmar project bloats to P3.1B
KORONADAL CITY -- The cost of the Malitubog-Maridagao (Malmar) irrigation project has risen threefold from the projected amount and worse, it is P600 million short of completion.
When construction work for the Malmar irrigation project began in October 1, 1989, the estimated cost was placed at one billion until its completion by December 31, 2005.
Nearly 16 years later and still unfinished, the price of the project has risen to P3.1 billion.
"Rising prices of construction materials over the years led to the tremendous ballooning of the project's cost," Ma. Lourdes Lim, regional director of National Economic Development Authority said last week.
The irrigation project, which cut across the towns of Carmen and Pikit in North Cotabato and Pagalungan and Datu Montawal in Maguindanao in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, was originally designed to service at least 10,840 hectares of farmlands.
However, a project briefer showed the total area has been firmed up to only 7,173 hectares.
Moreover, instead of the 4,549 target farmer beneficiaries, the actual beneficiaries were reduced to only 3,656 farmers, the briefer added.
All of these are supposed to be part of the one billion pesos loan extended by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
National Irrigation Administration is implementing the Malmar irrigation project.
Although the project briefer said the facility is about 94 percent complete as of last October, finishing the remaining length remains has remained a big question mark.
The unfinished small span, according to Lim, still requires P600 million, which is more than half of the original budget intended for the project of one billion pesos. (RBS)
(December 5, 2005 issue)
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