ROOT CAUSE
In tracing the root cause of the problem, Roxas found out during the meeting that the problem was the failure of the town mayors to submit a Program of Works (POW) which is a major requirement for the release of the funds.
The POW discusses in details how a construction project for instance would be built and if it is compliant with the government-imposed policy that all structures that would be built must be quake-resilient.
At the course of the discussion, Sagbayan Mayor Ricardo Suarez stood up to explain that the reason they failed to submit POWs is that they do not have technical experts to write and craft them.
In Sagbayan town, it was learned that a total of 66 programs were supposed to be built for the locals but yesterday, Suarez admitted he was only able to submit three POWs, so far.
During the brief exchange of ideas, it was established that the root cause of the problem is the lack of engineers to craft the POWs, especially for construction projects.
Chatto then told Roxas that 15 engineers have already been hired to help local government units craft and fine-tune the erratic POWs that local government units submitted.
The problem, however, is that they were just hired recently and that they are expected to start on Monday.
To fast-track the completion of the reconstruction of the 1,066 projects, Roxas proposed to get additional 20 engineers from the Department of Public Works and Highways to reinforce the 15 engineers that the local DILG office has tapped.
“All the projects that just need repairs will be given to the 15 DILG engineers while the projects that require more technical works should be given to the 20 DPWH engineers,†said Roxas.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=79119.0