A whopping P91.48 million flood mitigation and drainage project in Barangay Candating in Arayat town is apparently sinking along with the funds.
The second phase of the rehabilitation of the Pampanga river bank implemented by the local Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is funded by taxpayers’ money through the General Appropriations Act of 2024.
The multi-million peso 8-month project is less than halfway through its target completion set on November 4. Again, sunken to waste.
With its compromised columns, the structure is on the verge of collapse. A high-budgeted infrastructure project that has so prematurely failed. A reminder another: of squandered public funds.
Does it not give you that feeling that the project has been marred by cost-cutting measures? Would it not pass our judgment, being the taxpayers, that the project was indeed corrupted?
Hard-earned money poured into projects that fail to deliver. There goes the public trust – of which we can’t blame that it, too, is eroded. Felt not only in the loss of infrastructure but also in the diminishing faith in government institutions.
Three houses among the 10 fronting the slope protection had already been abandoned by their tenants for safety purposes. They have to move to their relatives. Irate residents urged an impartial investigation on the said construction of the flood mitigation project.
The DPWH 1st District engineering office has initiated sand bagging operations to temporarily mitigate the impact. Isn’t that funny? Are they going to get additional, separate funds to allocate here? And speaking of funds, who’s funds will they spend for such costly failure? How much does the sinking project now cost? And who is responsible for all the troubling disregard for quality? As usual, no one is willing to be quoted. Maybe the balls were sacked in the sandbag.