Train law affects city’s road asphalting projects
The Cebu City’s Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) is asking a P45-million additional budget this year to fund the asphalting of various city roads and repair of its equipment.
The committee on budget and finance of the City Council held a budget hearing yesterday to discuss the additional budget proposal that Mayor Tomas Osmeña submitted.
Assistant City Engineer Nilo Igot said that due to the implementation of Republic Act 10963, or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) Law, the prices of some ingredients for asphalt have increased.
The DEPW has an approved budget of P60 million for asphalting under the 2018 annual budget.
“After the implementation of the Train Law, the P60 million became too small because the asphalt ingredients became more expensive compared to the regular pricing we canvassed last year,” Igot said.
Igot said some of the ingredients like bitumen, or the black sticky mixture of hydrocarbons from the residue of petroleum distillation, became more expensive.
Of the P45 million, P40 million will be spent for paving and retreading of several city streets while the P5 million will be used for the decanter tank.
The decanter tank is used in mixing the asphalt in the batching plant.
At present, Igot said there are still around 1,000 kilometers of city roads that need asphalting starting this month up to the first week of January.
“What we are doing right now to these streets is patching while waiting for the additional budget,” he said.
The P45 million additional budget for DEPW was part of the proposed P299.8 million third supplemental budget of the City this year. /