P465M seen wasted on dredging in Albay

10 July 2007
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon

LEGAZPI CITY—THE GOVERN-ment would have saved as much as P465 million in taxpayers’ money had it used manual labor for its 30 dredging and earth-diking projects in Albay, an official of the Department of Public Works and Highways disclosed.

Romeo Esplana of the DPWH legal office in Bicol, said the government did not really need to spend P655 million for dredging the 11-kilometer Yawa River if it only declared its channels an open quarry site.

The river leading to the Albay Gulf swelled at the height of Supertyphoon “Reming” last year, causing flooding in Legazpi City and the neighboring Daraga town, and dumping millions of cubic meters of sand in these areas.

“Some 50,000 cubic meters of sand could be possibly dredged in one day using the labor-intensive method, which could create a stream of economic benefits at the local level,” said Esplana, who also holds a masteral degree in Development Management from the Asian Institute of Management.

Overpriced?

The river alone can accommodate some 50 quarry sites, he said. By means of the “labor-intensive method,” he said, the government would have been able to generate jobs, especially for people who lost their livelihood to typhoons.

Esplana roughly estimated government savings at 70 percent of the total project cost or P465 million.

Earlier, former Gov. Fernando Gonzalez questioned as “likely overpriced” the multimillion-peso dredging and earth-diking projects.

What was needed were permanent flood-control facilities and not dredging and collapsible earth-dikes, which would all be useless when heavy rains come, Gonzalez said.

Orlando Roces, DPWH regional director, told the Inquirer in a mobile phone interview that the DPWH could not have misused government funds since the projects underwent strict monitoring by the agency’s inspectorate group and quality control unit.

“There will also be a post-inspection analysis to be done by the Commission on Audit,” Roces said.

Machines vs men

He added that the contracts went under bidding, except for 20 percent of the projects, which were subjected to a negotiated procurement, being “emergency” in nature after the calamities that struck Bicol.

Esplana urged the public to inquire and investigate how public funds were being used by the government.

Under the mechanized strategy, in which dredging projects are awarded to contractors, the government would spend P150 per cubic meter, Esplana explained. In the labor-intensive method, it would spend only P1.37. Dredging 50,000 cubic meters of sand with machines amounted to P7.5 million per day, while workers could have done the job for P68,500 per day.