The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has ensured that the government’s infrastructure projects under the “Build, Build, Build” program will continue before the end of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term.
In a virtual presser of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, DPWH Undersecretary Emil Sadain said that 18 major infrastructure projects out of 119 projects would be completed by the end of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term in June.
“We have actually a total of about 24, plus first half of the year we have 7 projects completed and towards the mid-year of 2022 we have another 11 for a total of 18 projects. Towards the end of 2022 we can add more another 12 projects. So of it’s 89 will be carried out in 2023 and beyond,” said Sadain.
According to him, the “portfolio list” includes 112 infrastructure projects, some of which will still be funded under the Official Development Assistance (ODA), and some will come from government funds.
DPWH assures ‘Build, Build, Build’ projects will continue
Sadain admitted that the pandemic brought about by COVID-19, just like the Binondo-Intramuros Bridge, also affected the speedy completion of public works.
Meanwhile, it assured that since most of these projects are funded through Official Development Assistance (ODA), they are also exempted from the election ban.
“For the big ticket projects, especially on the ODA, since this is actually exempted from the election ban, so we can proceed as scheduled both for the design and the construction and for some other ODA funded projects we actually requested already the exemption from the Comelec for we to proceed in the implementation also with the DOTr and other line agencies involved in the implementation of these 112 flagship projects, ”said Sadain.
Sadain is confident that whoever sits in the next administration after the election will do well to continue the infrastructure projects started by the current administration.
“For the 119 projects, we had already completed around 18 and 12 of these will be completed towards the end of 2023… So about 89 of these will be carried out to the next administration. I think they (the next administration) would proceed with the implementation, most of these projects have been properly reviewed by the NEDA-ICC board and it went through a process, “said Sadain.
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