PRRC to speed up projects after low completion rate in 2018

MANILA, Philippines – The Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC) will be in a catch-up mode for the rest of the year after it has cleared the roadblocks that caused it to miss deadlines in 2018, PRRC Executive Director Jose Antonio Goitia on Monday, June 3, said. 

Goitia was reacting to the  Commission on Audit (COA) report which said that PRRC’s projects only had an accomplishment rate of 1% to 27.65% in 2018 despite spending 96% of its funding due to failure to anticipate problems.

“Regarding that 2018, kung bakit naman naubos yung funds (on why the funds ran out), my predecessor had a project at San Fransisco River that was stopped,” Goitia said, referring to a PRRC project in Quezon City. 

“Pumayag yung DBM (Department of Budget and Management) na ituloy namin yung San Francisco Phase 2 project.”

(The DBM said that we can continue the San Francisco Phase 2 project.)

Goitia also pointed to the lack of support from the National Housing Authority, which he said promised to provide 16,700 houses for the relocation of informal settlers. 

PRRC Planning Division Head Jimbo Mallari said that these delays were “uncontrollable factors.” These were the delayed 2019 budget and the case of a barangay chairman barring PRRC’s contractors from relocating informal settlers.

“Mahirap, ayaw nila magpa-implement ng projects kasi tinatanggal namin yung [mga] tao. Isa ‘yan sa mga dahilan: we get threats from the LGU (local government units). They don’t want to support the project of the national government,” he added. 

(It’s hard, they don’t want to have the projects implemented because we remove the people. That’s one more reason: we get threats from the LGUs, they don’t want to support the project of the national government.)

Goitia, however, clarified that the barangay chairman in question  was an isolated case and they already filed a case to the Department of the Interior and Local Government. – Rappler.com