DAVAO City is still awaiting approval for its P3.4 billion fund request from the national government to construct the Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incinerator Facility, according to Davao City Councilor Tek Ocampo on Monday, May 8.
Ocampo, who is also the chairperson for the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources of the city council, said construction can start immediately once the budget request is approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) board.
“Naa na ta, kumpleto (requirements) (Our requirements are complete). Ang kulang na lang (What’s left) is to commence the construction but without the budget, we can’t do that,” Ocampo said during an interview with the Davao City Disaster Radio.
The requested fund amounts to P3.486 billion which will serve as an additional budget to finance the WTE Facility project. Ocampo said the city has already secured P2.5 billion budget but additional funding is still needed.
In the meantime, the councilor said the city is open to other proposals in case the request for additional budget is rejected. Ocampo said they are currently looking at WTE technologies from the United Kingdom and Australia.
“Di man pud ta pwede magpaabot na lang sa wala so naa pud ta gina-entertain na other type of proposals for WTE but different from the Japan technology (We can’t just wait for nothing so we are also entertaining other proposals for WTE that are different from the Japan technology),” he said.
Ocampo added that the UK and Australian WTE would not require funding from the local government however, the facility would need at least around one million tons of waste per year which could be difficult to provide.
“Masulbad na atong problema sa basura sa Davao City kay kinahanglan nila dako na volume pero ang problema, kulangan ang facility (The facility would need a huge volume of waste, which would solve our problem in Davao City but at the same time, it would not be enough to run their operations). Asa sila manguha og basura karon. Ingon sila, makig-storya sila sa uban cities na diri sa Davao City i-hand off ang basura but storyahan nato na committee kung unsa ilang pamaagi kay dili man pwede mag-pataka lang mag-pasulod og basura diri (They would have to import waste from other areas into Davao City but that’s something we are discussing in the committee because we cannot just allow them to do that),” the councilor said.
As of now, nothing is final yet for the WTE facility while the additional funding is not yet approved by the national government.
The request for the P3.486 billion was submitted last August 2022 after the 20th Davao City Council unanimously approved the resolution to request President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for the additional budget. ICM