Only for garbage trucks: City restores fuel allocations

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete ordered the restoration of fuel allocation for barangay garbage trucks due to the intensified garbage collection that the city has implemented.

The restoration of fuel allocation was made after some barangays complained that they could not intensify the garbage collection due to lack of fuel.

To recall, the city government cut by 15 percent the allocation of fuel for all government-owned vehicles, including those of the barangays, after learning from a report submitted by the General Service Office that the monthly fuel allocation is much higher than the actual monthly consumption.

The city government consumes about 5,000 to 6,000 liters of diesel and 1,200 to 2,000 liters of gasoline a day.

Last year, the total fuel consumption has reached P111 million. It is expected to increase to P140 million this year considering the numerous time that oil companies have increased their prices.

The city supplies fuel to 472 barangay vehicles.

Poblete however ordered for the restoration of the fuel allocation only for the garbage trucks.

Each barangay has at least one garbage truck but some, especially the big barangays, have three trucks.

GSO Chief Rolando Ardosa said that it is but right to bring back the fuel allocation for garbage trucks so as not to affect the delivery of services.

The city government, at the start of this month, has started implementing the ‘no segregation, no collection’ policy after it shut down the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill.

During the first days of the implementation, residents who refuse to follow the new policy just left their garbage in the streets unsegregated.

These mounds of garbage have to be collected by the barangay or the city government to keep the cleanliness in the surrounding.

But in some cases, the garbage, even if segregated, are not collected for days because some barangays only do few rounds in their respective area.

Poblete said they are reviving the fuel allocation so barangays will have no excuse when they fail to deliver the services in their areas.

Some barangays though, specifically the mountain barangays, have requested that their fuel allocation be back because they are far from the city proper or from the Inayawan Material Recovery Facility.(FREEMAN NEWS)