Davao mayor nudges DoF, NEDA on pending projects

DAVAO CITY Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio has called on national government agencies to get three major projects moving by acting on the review of documents and giving final approval.

In her State of the City Address (SOCA) Monday afternoon, Ms. Carpio cited the pending construction of the Davao-Samal Bridge, a waste-to-energy (WTE) facility, and the rollout of the High Priority Bus System (HPBS).

“‘Yung mga (The) documents are with national agencies. Humihingi tayo ng support sa kanila (We are asking their support) with these projects… para masugdan ang (so we can start) implementation within three years,” she explained in a press conference after the SOCA.

The mayor said the planned HPBS and the bridge that will connect the Island Garden City of Samal to Davao City are both pending final review and approval by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

The WTE, on the other hand, is pending before the Department of Finance (DoF).

The HPBS, which will replace jeepneys with a more efficient public bus transport system, has been planned for implementation before the end of the year or early 2020.

For the WTE — which was planned and will be implemented with assistance from the Japanese government and Davao’s sister city Kitakyushu in Japan — the local government has already purchased a property for the facility’s site. It is programmed as one of the long-term solid waste management solutions for the city.

The longstanding Davao-Samal bridge, meanwhile, was already announced as a priority project in 2017 by the national government.

Meanwhile, the mayor also vowed to make the city debt-free by 2022, the end of her current three-year term.

Other priorities would be the construction of infrastructure for the education and health sectors, citing a plan to have zero backlog in classrooms, a “state-of-the-art” library, a new city health office and lying-in clinics. — Maya M. Padillo