Gatchalian dead set on removing close to 300 DPWH projects

By Tracy Cabrera 

KEEN in setting things right at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) during the hearing of the agency’s ₱7.2-trillion proposed national budget for next year, Senate President Sherwin ‘Win’ Gatchalian is eyeing to remove some 295 infrastructure projects deemed not compliant with the required evaluation. 

According to Gatchalian, “the Senate is committed unequivocally to weeding out unsubstantiated line items, including those lacking concrete and verifiable technical support, to ensure that every item in the final version is shovel-ready.
He stressed that unverifiable line items will not receive a single peso of public funding in reference to the 295 public works projects worth ₱8.836 billion.

“It’s clear in (our) mandate—no relevant documents, no funds. There should be no room for abuse of people’s money, especially during economic slowdown, when every peso is needed to keep the economy moving,” the Senate leader pointed out.

Prior to this in September, Gatchalian had cited that more than 62 percent or 7,107 of the agency’s total 11,395 infrastructure projects reviewed by his office had at least one major budgetary red flag.

He noted that among the red-flagged projects were those which featured lacking station numbers and geographical coordinates, overlapping or fragmented projects and conflicting types of work.