2 foreign-funded projects in Central Luzon suspended
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines— Two major foreign-assisted projects in Central Luzon have been suspended while another has been delayed due to several reasons, among them a review by the Office of the President, an assessment of designs and operational issues, the Regional Project Monitoring Committee (RPMC) said.
Benefits were delayed to farmers as Tulay ng Pangulo Para sa Kaunlarang Agraryo, worth P4.1 billion in the region and was to begin in March 2009, was suspended. The project aims to build 86 bridges on a loan from France.
The project was stopped even after the Department of Agrarian Reform already identified 28 bridges for implementation and 26 bridges for preconstruction in March this year, the RPMC said in a report released to the Inquirer last week.
Three items in the roads and bridges component of the Post-Ondoy and Pepeng Short Term Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), worth P341.9 million on a loan from Japan, have been suspended due to the revision of the detailed engineering design, the RPMC said.
The P655.8-million flood control component, which began in March 2011, was completed in March this year.
The purchase of new communication, navigation and surveillance equipment and air-traffic management centers for airports in Plaridel town in Bulacan province, Clark Freeport and Subic Bay Freeport has been delayed, according to the RPMC.
The project is funded by Japan for P157.6 million, with the Clark International Airport getting P105.4 million.
“The overall physical accomplishment was 53.62 percent, with a fund utilization rate of 19 percent,” the RPMC said.
It said that as of March, “no physical activity [was] reported except for the design reviews of the three airports.”
The RPMC said other local projects in Central Luzon had been delayed due to various problems.
The Balagtas and North Food Exchange Interchange Phase 3, funded by the DPWH at a cost of P410 million for the agricultural sector, was also delayed after it was suspended again in June 2013 due to a right-of-way problem.
The second phase of the expansion of Gapan-San Fernando-Olongapo Road (now the Jose Abad Santos Avenue) could not proceed smoothly because of right-of-way issues and a change in the project’s materials. The expiration of the P2.2-billion loan from South Korea was extended to April 2015 from April 2014.
The Casecnan Multipurpose Irrigation and Power Project Phase 2, a project of the National Irrigation Administration, has been delayed by heavy rains. Scheduled to be finished in 2016, the project has a 12.88-percent physical accomplishment. The report said 6.51 percent of the project’s P7-billion budget had been used.
The Public-Private School Infrastructure Project Phase 1 of the Department of Education (DepEd) also failed to meet targets, the RPMC said.
DepEd contractors, as of March this year, completed only 433 classrooms and 122 school buildings out of the target 2,885 classrooms and 683 school buildings.
The delay was traced to the DepEd’s failure to orient local governments, lack of space or land ownership issue, the RPMC report said. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon
