DBM to release oil spill fund on ‘per need basis’

March 18th, 2008 by Site Administrator

BUDGET Secretary Rolando Andaya assured that the remaining P350 million oil spill rehabilitation fund for Guimaras could still be released but on a “per need basis.”

Andaya said the affected municipalities must only justify their needs in asking for said oil spill rehabilitation fund.

The government agencies implementing rehabilitation projects for oil-spill affected barangays in Guimaras were expecting that the P863 million rehabilitation fund would be reverted to the national treasury by the end of 2007. The agencies were then facing problems after there were delays in the disbursement of funds.

The DBM has allotted around P600 million of the total P863 million. The budget secretary could not remember the total cash releases made to the affected municipalities since the approval of the budget in the House of Representatives. The disbursement of the funds and the implementation of the rehabilitation projects have been stalled by bureaucratic procedures.

The P863 million Guimaras oil rehabilitation fund is part of the supplemental budget approved by Congress in 2006 after the M/T Solar 1 chartered by Petron sank in stormy seas off Guimaras on August 11, 2006, spilling more than 2.1 million liters of bunker fuel oil it was transporting from Bataan to Zamboanga.

The oil spill affected 5,437 families or 26,740 individuals in Guimaras alone and contaminated fishing grounds and devastated the island’s rich marine life and tourism sites.

The P863 million fund includes appropriations to the Department of Agriculture (P100 million), Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (P130 million), Department of Health (P22 million), DSWD (P247 million), local government units (P250 million), UP-Visayas (P50 million), and other agencies (P64 million).

The government agencies are bound by accounting and financial rules and requirements. There should be proper and full accounting on first release made to them before any release could be made as government transactions are governed by rules and procedures, stressed Andaya.

Maricar Calubiran/The News Today