Ralph Recto
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Finance (DOF) will tighten the approval process for flood control projects, which will now be aggregated within a single river basin so their combined amount would be big enough to qualify for high-level scrutiny.
The Economy and Development (ED) Council Investment Coordination Committee – Cabinet Committee (ICC-CC), chaired by Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, has approved the stricter measure, which aims to help curb corruption in those projects.
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Under the resolution, the government will conduct a comprehensive review of the flood management projects and to ensure that these are shovel-ready before their implementation.
The current ICC guidelines only require evaluation of projects above the P2.5-billion threshold. Thus, most of the existing flood control projects, which were treated individually, were so small in terms of costs that they did not undergo the ICC evaluation process.
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This also results in disaggregated projects, which do not take into account possible flooding impacts to adjacent communities within a single river basin.
By grouping flood control and management projects in a single river basin, the DOF said more of these projects will be subjected to the ICC evaluation, particularly in the aspects of technical, environmental, social, and economic viability, among others.
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