Pinakikilos ni House Ways and Means Committee Chair at Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda ang Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) para maghigpit sa pagmonitor ng local water districts.
Aniya, mas maigi na pagsamahin na lang ang mga water district na hindi naman gumagana o hindi nagagamit upang mas lumawak ang maserbisyuhan nitong lugar.
Sa pagtataya ni Salceda, humigit-kumulang 300 water districts ang kasalukuyang hindi gumagana o halos hindi gumagana at ang mga lugar na kanilang pinaglilingkuran ay walang gumaganang central water system.
“You could combine those water districts into clusters to make infrastructure investments more efficient. The thing with water is that it is infrastructure-intensive, it requires a lot of fixed costs, and it is only viable with enough revenue-paying users. So, if a water district is too small, or has too little demand, it’s doomed to fail – or will never mature to provide sanitation services, which are also expensive,” saad ni Salceda.
Mungkahi pa nito, bigyan ng insentibo ang consolidation sa pamamagitan ng financing terms at performance review.
Hiniling din ni Salceda sa Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) at sa mga economic managers na maglatag ng panuntunan para sa local-government “water alliances” para sa mga lokal na pamahalaan na maghahati sa water management.
Suportado naman ng Albay solon ang planong national water inventory ng bagong LWUA administrator gayundin ang patubig sa “Buong Bayan at Mamamayan Project”.
“The new LWUA administrator, Vince Revil, means well. I support his efforts to conduct a national water inventory, and the P20 billion the Patubig sa Buong Bayan at Mamamayan project. But to ensure that operations and management of new water systems are efficient, we really need to consolidate water districts that are inefficient or non-operational.” dagdag ng mambabatas. | ulat ni Kathleen Jean Forbes
