City withholds signing MOA with private water contractor

CEBU, Philippines - The city council withheld the approval of a Memorandum of Agreement with a private water contractor seeking further environmental and economic safeguards.

The members of the city council recently had a lengthy discussion over the MOA between Cebu City and Abejo Builders who signified interest to put up Barangay Water Systems in areas not serviced by Metro Cebu Water District.

The MOA is endorsed in a resolution authored by councilor Jose Daluz III.

Daluz told his colleagues that Abejo already has three barangays under contract and the BWS is going on smoothly.

“Abejo is servicing those residents in the sitios that have no water at no expense to the city government for 25 years,” Daluz said.

But Committee on Environment head councilor Nestor Archival said that it was the recommendation of their committee that Daluz should revisit the MOA.

In particular, Archival said it should be known in the MOA the specific extent of the assistance that Abejo will undertake for the BWS as well as the participation of the barangay.

Archival said it is also necessary to know the amount of water that will be extracted from a source in order to prevent further saltwater intrusion into the drinking water of Cebu City.

He said the demand of Cebu City is around 4,000 to 4,500 cubic meters of water daily and only 2,000 is supplied by MCWD.

“So we presume there are around 2,000 that are getting directly from a source and are not controlled, these contribute to the saltwater intrusion. It’s not really the money but the future,” Archival said.

Daluz said Abejo has equipment that monitors its daily extraction to make sure it does not go overboard.

Archival also mentioned in his committee report that there should be a provision prohibiting Abejo from supplying to other places the water it extracts from the Cebu City source.

He said a provision should also be inserted in the MOA explicitly mandating Abejo to give due regard to the ecological changes resulting from the project.

Councilor Edu Rama further suggested that a city or local water board be created to monitor water extraction in the entire city.   — Ferliza C. Contratista/BRP (THE FREEMAN)