New LWUA chief mulls creation of Water Bank
BACOLOD CITY -- Local Water Utilities Administrator Prospero Pichay, Jr. vowed to establish Water Bank in three months time, reduce bureaucracy in LWUA and discourage water rate increases in his five year term as the new LWUA Administrator.
He was in Bacolod City recently to be with the Panay and Negros water district officials who are members of the Visayas Association of Water Districts.
He said that LWUA is 35 years already and it has started with 12 water districts. Now it is currently serving 612 water districts in the country. There are 755 municipalities with no water system yet and he will start establishing 50 water districts from now until 2010.
It is one of his best ideas of establishing Water Bank for the water districts to save from high interest rates. He said that if there is a Land Bank, there should also be Water Bank.
The World Bank and Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) lend to LWUA billions of pesos and in return, LWUA relends it to water districts. The interests would go up from 9% to 15% which is not competitive, Pichay said.
But if there is Water Bank and water districts will deposit their money there, it could have lesser interest rates and more water districts will be born out of it.
"We will have mozre leeway in lending money to the water districts with lesser interest rates," he said.
Bacolod City Water District (Baciwa) General Manager Atty. Julie Ann Carbon said that they will have more confidence in depositing their money to the Water Bank and in return, they will also benefit from low interest rates.
Pichay said that President Arroyo directed him to provide clean and affordable water supply in every home. And it is his priority that no water rate increase should be approved.
The proposed 16% water rate increase in Silay City was even disapproved by Pichay and he told the water district official Glen Antipordia not to push through with the water rate increase. He said that LWUA is willing to help them but just defer the water rate increase.
He said that when the cost of gasoline reduces, the cost of water will also be either reduced or maintained, but never to increase it now.
Moroever, Pichay has abandoned the idea of running for the Senate in 2010.
"I had sleepness nights before I accepted the job. If I want to serve the people, being in LWUA is also serving the people. With the kind of Senate right now, it would be better to be with LWUA than be with those clowns in a circus," he said.