Millions wasted on streetlights
Dahino said her committee approved more than P20 million to rehabilitate the city street lights because of wire looting
City Councilor Edna Dahino urged the authorities to take action against the alleged wire looting in some of the street lights causing its malfunction.
In her special report during the weekly session, Dahino said this has been a perennial problem of the City Engineer’s Office as well as barangay officials.
“We are wasting millions of investments,” she said.
“Improving our streetlights is just an example of ways that our city can take tangible steps toward improved service delivery, ensure public safety and improved quality of life for our residents,” Dahino said.
Dahino said putting up streetlights is one of the public safety strategies to deter crimes. The absence of it pose security threats of city residents.
Dahino recalled how her committee, the committee on finance, budget and appropriations approved more than P20 million to rehabilitate and upgrade the city street lights.
She also lamented how the city has yet to complete the conversion of traditional sodium streetlights to LED when an additional budget was approved to support this undertaking.
“It’s sad to note that the project is still unfinished up until now. Some of the city streets are still in darkness when this shouldn’t be the case,” she said.
“It is on this note that I’m asking for the cooperation of our barangay council in our city to help oversee the maintenance and upkeep of our city’s streetlights in their respective barangays for a quicker and localize response, to immediately report to the Engineer’s Office any out-of-order streetlights to repair them and help secure our resources,” she added.
The City Engineer’s Office started the installation of P19.5 million-worth of streetlights in Cagayan de Oro City’s major streets since March last year.
City Engineer Rolando Pacuribot said the LED lights could very much help in saving energy and reduce the cost of lighting public places.