COA wrong on ‘Yolanda’ rehab–DILG

ONLY 10 of the 309 rehabilitation projects in areas devastated by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in the Visayas and southern Luzon remained to be completed, Interior Secretary Mel Senen Sarmiento said yesterday.

Sarmiento issued a statement to clarify a Commission on Audit (COA) report last week that said only 138 of the reconstruction projects had been completed as of December 2014, more than a year after the strongest typhoon to ever hit land wrought its worst in November 2013.

The projects, under the first phase of the Rehabilitation Assistance for Yolanda Victims (RAY), had a total allocation of P1.8 billion. The national government tasked the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) with overseeing the project implementation.

Sarmiento said the second phase of the rehabilitation program, with an approved budget of P1.57 billion, was 42-percent completed.

He said the RAY-funded projects in the provinces of Palawan, Masbate, Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Cebu, Biliran, Eastern Samar, Leyte and Samar were 95-percent completed.

“[T]he remaining 10 projects [are] expected to be completed by the first quarter of this year,” Sarmiento said.

“We are close to finishing the repairs of damaged facilities included in the first batch of RAY. We are currently working on those identified in the second batch of the program,” he said.