NEWS BRIEFS

GARBAGE CRISIS

CEBU City may face a garbage crisis if the Department of Public Services (DPS) does not get additional funds.

This is because the city council only approved P199.7 million of the department’s proposed P321.7-million budget for 2012.

Engineer Dionisio Gualiza, DPS head, said the slashing of their budget would mean that they could not push through with the plan to purchase 20 six-wheeler garbage trucks for the barangays and 10 10-wheeler trucks.

The DPS also needs additional funds for the tipping fees of the garbage dumped in a private landfill facility in Pulog, Consolacion.

Only P31.3 million is allocated for tipping fees but the city needs more than P57 million for the first three months of this year.

The city is paying P700 per ton of garbage brought to the Pulog facility.

The council also did not approve the P24.8-million budget that he proposed for the lease of heavy equipment to be used to manage the temporary transfer station in Inayawan and to transfer the garbage to Consolacion.

“We will need supplemental appropriation to secure the remaining balance of the funding requirement. I have asked the Solid Waste Management Board to prioritize request for supplemental appropriation so the city will not smell from uncollected garbage,” said Gualiza during a media briefing yesterday.

Gualiza said that with the minimal budget, they could hardly maintain the existing DPS and barangay trucks./Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac

93-1 LOTS PRICING

THE Cebu provincial government will start negotiating with Skyview Park Homeowner’s Association once the pricing of the 93-1 lots will be released.

Cebu Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale told reporters yesterday that they were waiting for the pricing from the Cebu Provincial Appraisal Committee (CPAC).

The Provincial Board (PB) met with Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia yesterday to discuss about the purchase of lots 3 and 4 in barangay Busay, Cebu City.

The lots cover 5.2 hectares or 53,386 square meters of Capitol lots covered in Ordinance 93-1.

Magpale said that once CPAC would give the price, they would draft a resolution to give Garcia the authority to sign the agreement with the homeowner’s association.

This proposed resolution will be discussed during Monday’s PB session.

CPAC had a separate meeting yesterday but the venue where they met was not divulged.

Ordinance 93-1 was passed by the Provincial Board in 1993 and the beneficiaries were asked to pay in five years a minimal amount for the province-owned lots they were occupying.

However, some of the lot occupants did not religiously pay their dues and also put up businesses that the Capitol viewed as a breach of the contract.

Magpale said that hopefully, once negotiation will start, the 93-1 issue will be resolved since its long overdue./Correspondent Carmel Loise Matus