FDC opposes MIWD privatization citing financial irregularities
The Iloilo Chapter of the nationwide campaigns and advocacy group Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) have issued its opposition to the proposal of Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas to privatize the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) saying this move will "compromise public interest" especially that the water utility is marred by financial irregularities.
Ted Aldwin Ong, FDC's secretary-general said, "our group has been in the sideline silently monitoring the operations of MIWD. Since 2000, MIWD have been drum-beating the issue on water shortage as a step towards its privatization but it never exposed the state of its finances. Here lies the real issue"
FDC's chairperson Romeo Gerochi explained that "the people running the operations of MIWD have been milking the water utility with millions of pesos of people's money. This is confirmed no less by the report of the Commission on Audit."
Gerochi said, in its 2002 report, the COA observed that MIWD's "Loan Account per books amounting to P600,067,131.42 does not tally with the Loan Amortization Schedule of P576,572, 280.27 or a difference of P23,494,851.15"
He added, it was also found out that MIWD have been issuing excessive allowances to its general manager and board members for conventions and conferences.
Gerochi cited the allowances granted to MIWD's general manager and four members of the board during the Philippine Association of Water Districts (PAWD) convention at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City in January 23-25, 2002 which was pegged at P24,000.00 per participant, totaling to P120,000.00."
According to Gerochi the COA report decried that the amount was "excessive" and in violation of the guidelines set by National Budget Circular No. 442, which states that registration fees on conferences and similar activities must not exceed P900 per day per participant.
"This is clear financial mismanagement on the part of MIWD's general manager. The City Government must instead put on hold its plan to privatize MIWD and the city council must desist from issuing resolution in support of the privatization move. Instead, we urge them to have this investigated in order to hold persons accountable of these misdeeds," averred Gerochi.
Ong also explained "if this is how things are being done by MIWD, we are expecting the worse under the privatized set-up as per our experience in the privatization of water utilities in Manila with the Maynilad and the MWSS of the Ayalas. It will never result to the improvement of its services or the lowering of rates. Our rich background on these cases points as to where the problem really lies in as far as privatization is concerned and we were right as the COA report complemented our own assumptions that MIWD is bleeding financially."