NIA sets agenda to improve farm irrigation services

LEGAZPI CITY – Former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief and now National Irrigation Administration (NIA) head Ricardo Visaya unveiled his agency’s agenda that he said aims to improve the irrigation services in the country.

“Well, my priorities being the administrator is to eradicate graft and corruption within the organization,” Visaya said in a forum with different stakeholders at a hotel here Friday.

“We want to deliver good services to the public and you can only do that if corruption will be stopped,” he added.

Visaya said he will also improve the engineering capabilities of NIA and work on the increase of salaries of employees in order to boost their morale.

He also had a memorandum of agreement with AFP to provide security for NIA projects.

“We can assure the contractors that security will be provided in areas where the government projects are being implemented,” he said.

Asked for his thoughts that President Duterte has tagged the NPA as terrorists, he said, “We will expect they will intensify offensives.

They might target the soft targets (or the) nonmilitary targets (particularly) the projects of NIA. We will take actions to prevent it”.

He said he will also work on hydro-power plants to provide electricity in some far-flung areas that still have no power.