Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday refuted the recent report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism stating that seven out of 10 foreign assisted projects in the country were not effective.
The report made him apprehensive, said the mayor, and he planned to come up with his own advertisement in a national paper just to refute the PCIJ report.
Osmeña said Cebu has a lot of Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects, mostly funded by the Japanese government, and these are very useful now. One of these, which he got during his term as chairman of the Metro Cebu Development Project and the Regional Development Council, is the new Mandaue-Mactan bridge, now known as the Marcelo Fernan Bridge.
He also cited the north reclamation area, the south coastal road, the Mactan circumferential road, the A.S. Fortuna road, the V. Rama Avenue, the New Imus road, the traffic lights in the city, and the Inayawan Sanitary landfill, among others.
“I would like to tell the people of Cebu that I have brought many ODA projects here and it’s for them to judge if they are effective or not,” the mayor said, adding that the Marcelo Fernan bridge has been very useful to the public because it provides easier and better access to the airport.
PCIJ recently published a three-part series, which caps its six-month review of the projects, and official documents covering 71 ODA projects funded by Japan and China.
Part 3 of the series reveals that most projects reviewed have failed to deliver the promised economic benefits, and in turn exacerbates the nation’s debt burden now. “At least seven in 10 projects funded by Official Development Assistance (ODA) loans have failed to deliver their touted benefits and results,” the report reads.
The PCIJ website also cited and showed a picture of the new Mandaue-Mactan bridge as one of the about 200 new bridges built with foreign aid from Japan.
”Project completion and post-evaluation reports on scores of projects bankrolled by the Philippines’ top three lenders show that 73 percent of completed foreign-assisted projects fell below estimates of economic benefits made during appraisal stage,” further said the PCIJ report, which covered projects and sub-projects funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Asian Development Bank, and World Bank.
Osmeña however protested: “Before drawing conclusion that seven out of 10… I take the exception to that—I say three out of 10. — Wenna A. Berondo/RAE