EDITORIAL

Maintaining Vital Assets

The worst roads are found in the southern part of the Philippines where the poorest provinces are located.

Due to the ineffective or deferred maintenance, most of the roads in the southern Philippines are unpaved, muddy and unfit for transport. ‘Everyone who has traveled there, knows the situation,’ said Titon Mitra, head of Australia AID (AusAID) in Manila. ‘Poorly maintained roads quickly become non-roads in heavy rainfall,’ he added. Roads like those are also found in Aklan, even in the capital town of Kalibo.

People have little choice but to get about on foot, often taking hours to reach their destination. When rainy season comes, the roads are virtually impassable. Children can’t go to school and farmers lose income because they can’t transport their produce to market, if not difficult.

Most road maintenance tasks are a local government responsibility but provincial governments are under funded by as much as 2.9 billion pesos annually.

A shortage of funds explains why provincial engineering offices just carry out spot repairs. In Misamis Occidental province, for instance, only 40 kilometers out of a possible 316 kilometers are ‘maintained’ in any one year. This means that on the average, a road is given a quick fix up once every eight years, AusAID estimated.

Usually, deterioration, particularly of the core network, occurs because of poor planning and the low priority accorded to roads by government – a surprising but very common problem in developing countries, and certainly the case in the Philippines.

In Mindanao, Australia is supporting a new program that attempts to break the cycle of neglect and create a model that will led to a change of attitude to asset preservation. Can this be done in Panay particularly in Aklan?

At the second Philippines – Australia Ministerial Meeting held in October 2008, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, announced that Australia will provide $100 million over five years to help rehabilitate and maintain more than 1,000 kilometers of roads in southern Philippines.
Poorly Maintained Roads Quickly Become Non-Roads

In Heavy Rainfall

By 2014, the new program will give around four million people not only a better road network, but the chance to engage in economic activity and to access essential services. The program will also factor in maintenance so the network can be sustained.

May proper fund handling be carefully done in order that funds intended for the project will be spent for the purpose.

Commentators worry how this will be achieved but an incentives program which encourages provincial governments to pursue reforms may be the answer. For example, the program will offer a matching grant – peso for peso up to a predetermined cap–to provinces that increase their own-sourced tax revenue generation.

This match-up method is already done in Aklan. But who will match Aklan’s money for road repair or construction?

Bad Roads Hamper Development

‘Encouraging own-revenue generation is needed to ensure the program’s long-term sustainability,’ said Mitra. ‘Provincial governments have to learn how to raise sufficient funds to cover not only their road maintenance obligations but also to deliver essential social services. We will help them through the aid program.’

Through the newly designed Philippines Pro-vincial Road Management Facility, Australia will assist the Government of the Philippines to manage and maintain a core network of provincial roads in Mindanao and the Visayas. AusAID will work with provincial governments to implement reforms to manage road maintenance services sustainability. Is bid rigging a part?

Under the Performance Incentives program which is a matching grant scheme, additional funds will go to each province’s development fund. Aside from physical road rehabilitation and maintenance works, these funds may be used for other needs, such as in health and education. /MP