SOLID waste management in Cebu City is still a huge problem for the City Government and what the executive department is doing is just a band-aid solution, opposition Councilor Joel Garganera said.
Garganera’s reaction came after the Department of Public Services (DPS) proposed to buy 21 compactor trucks worth P232 million next year to reduce the budget on garbage disposal.
While this developed, opposition Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera said while she is in favor of the move, they will have to go over the budget considering that’s it’s a huge amount.
“We have been recommending to them that they buy new compactor trucks, but then they insisted on privatizing garbage collection, which tripled the city's expenses. It's good that they came to realize their mistake. But we need to scrutinize the figure because it's a big amount. It's more than half of the budget for garbage collection,” Pesquera said.
For 2019, the DPS proposed P692 million budget, which include the P498 million for garbage collection, which is bigger compared to their P420-million budget this year.
Of the P498 million, P133.67 million was allocated for the rental of garbage trucks and P286.8 million was budgeted for the hauling of garbage.
Garganera said the executive department should decide if the City will outsource its garbage collection or let the DPS do it by buying new trucks since there is still a budget intended for hauling of garbage.
“There is already a redundancy here. The executive needs to decide if they want to outsource the garbage collection or do it themselves. In my opinion, I would understand if they bought a few trucks to replace the fully depreciated ones but to purchase these trucks with that huge amount, then I doubt if the executive is putting the people’s money in the right place,” he said.
During the budget hearing for the proposed P8.1 billion 2019 annual budget of the City last Wednesday, Nov. 7, DPS assistant department head John Paul Gelasque explained that they allocated a budget for hauling of garbage next year still to cover the period when they will still bid out the purchase of compactor trucks.
Gelasque said the P286.8 million is enough to cover the first six months of 2019 for the private service provider to dispose the garbage of the city.
“The bidding will take 28 days and it will take around five months as maximum before we can have the new trucks so that would be around June. While the trucks are still not there, we can let a private service provider do the hauling that’s why we set aside something for the hauling,” Gelasque said. (RVC)