Cebu City ready to mobilize P1.5B in unused funds to address flooding

CEBU City Mayor Edgardo Labella has created the Inter-Agency Task Force on Flooding (IATFF) that will look into what is needed so the P1.5 billion the City Government has set aside to address flooding can be used.

The City’s Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) will be working with the 1st Engineering District of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 headed by Florida Nuñez.

The point person will be June Maratas, head of the General Services Office. Members of the task force will include Jose Daluz III, Jerone Castillo, Kenneth Enriquez of DEPW and Nuñez.

The heavy downpour on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019, flooded several barangays.

Labella said the City has flood control funds amounting to P1.5 billion that were not used during the previous administration that it can use to come up with and implement a flood control program.

“For this reason, I constrained to create this IATFF to immediately make an evaluation, a study for this flood control program both of the City and DPWH so that there will be no overlapping and there will be coherence,” the mayor said.

Nuñez, for her part, said the DPWH 7 has an ongoing P1.7 billion flood control project in Cebu City that includes the Butuanon River and the waterway that runs through Barangay Tejero.

She said the agency has assigned 100 personnel to start clearing and cleaning the drainage of areas it has identified as flood-prone.

Maratas said the IATFF will convene on Thursday, Sept. 5, and Friday, Sept. 6, so the DEPW and the DPWH 7 can compare their drainage master plan.

He said the DEPW has been concentrating on the drainage along national highways like the N. Bacalso Ave., while the DPWH 7 has focused on waterways.

The DPWH 7 has an P8.2 billion budget for flood control but Nuñez said the amount has been downloaded to the regional office in tranches.

The Cebu City Government, DPWH 7 and other volunteers will conduct a massive dredging operation of the Mahiga Creek, wherein the agency will provide the heavy equipment to dig up the bottom of the waterway to make it deeper. FROM PAC OF SUPERBALITA CEBU / PJB

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