SP body delivers double knock-out on MIWD
To the World Bank – thanks but no thanks. To the Metro Iloilo Water District – bid goodbye to $150,000 and while at it, pay up three Iloilo towns.
Such appears to be the latest "final" position of the 9th Iloilo Sanggunian Panlalawigan's (SP) Committee on Infrastructure over a World Bank (WB) grant for the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD).
Apparently influenced by the earlier appeals made by at least three Iloilo mayors, the Committee in Committee Report No. 02 sealed the fate and junked the $150,000 (roughly P6 million) WB assistance.
In a duly signed two-paged report obtained by The News Today (TNT), the committee was forthright with its discussions on the merit of the request for SP endorsement.
Discussions on committee hearings conducted, the report went, focused not on the request for endorsement per se. What it really was as far as the committee was concerned, was the issue on purported unpaid monetary obligation of the MIWD to the Municipality of Maasin.
And with the ensuing exchanges in the committee hearings, MIWD officials apparently failed to convince the SP body that the request for endorsement is distinct from the unresolved issue of supposed MIWD unpaid obligations.
The Committee in a previous position sought for the approval and adoption of an original recommendation which granted the SP endorsement.
Committee Report No. 2 now states otherwise – "However, due to the letter of appeal for denial of the request of endorsement of MIWD, signed by the Mayors of the Municipality of Maasin, Oton and San Miguel, the Committee report was recommitted to the Committee on Infrastructure."
March 11th saw yet another round of committee meeting with the MIWD representatives present unable to commit payment of the 'side issue' on unpaid obligations to the three towns.
"In view of the foregoing, the Committee recommends NOT to endorse the request of the MIWD for a Grant from World Bank. The Committee further recommends that the Sanggunian Panlalawigan should pass a resolution demanding MIWD to pay the Municipalities of Maasin, Oton and San Miguel the LGU share of 1% of its gross sales or receipts based on the preceding calendar year, accruing from 2005 up to the present based on Sec. 289-292 of the Local Government Code of 1991," the Committee's recommendation went.
The WB Grant due to the MIWD was meant to assist the water district in its on-going rehabilitation and upgrading of pipeline network. Further still, it sought the SP support of the Grant as applied for aimed at refurbishment of the existing water sources supply to reduce the alarming level of systems loss or the Non Revenue Water (NRW) and augment its production capacity.
One SP Resolution then passed yet failed to be adopted pushed for the procedural requirement of the SP support.
In said initial approval, the Committee was then acceptable of the WB Grant calling the move "laudable undertaking by the MIWD to bolster its chance to avail the Grant beneficial to the people of Iloilo.