73 Provinces to get road rehab funds for P6.5-B in 2016 GAA

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The Philippine government has appropriated P6.5 billion in the 2016 General Appropriation Act (GAA) for the rehabilitation and upgrading of provincial roads in 73 provinces.

The Department of Budget confirmed the allocation of funds is performance-based with the recipient provinces chosen on compliance with good governance standards.

Dubbed KALSADA (Konkreto at Ayos na Lansangan at Daan Tungo sa Pangkalahatang Kaunlaran), the program will rehabilitate and upgrade provincial roads and transfer these road assets permanently to the provincial government, which will maintain them.

The program will also develop the Provincial Road Network Development Plan (PRNDP) for each province and promote the use of an online open data portal as a mechanism for monitoring and evaluation of provincial roads.

Provinces were selected based on their compliance with the Department of Interior and Local Government’s Seal of Good Financial Housekeeping and submission to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) of their Local Public Financial Management Assessment Report.

Allocations were determined by a combination of performance and need criteria, such as inclusion in the Budget Priorities Framework provinces, utilization and completion of local road projects under the Special Local Roads Fund (SLRF), as well as regular appropriation and use of maintenance funds for local roads.

Budget Secretary Abad said the P6.5 billion fund has a breakdown per province according to a formula that considers performance and need scores such as previous provincial utilization of SLRF and provincial road network length of the provinces that have complied with the requirements for consideration.

Abad said the government has created the Open Roads Portal, a system that uses geo-tagging for reporting on the status of the projects in collaboration with the World Bank and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)

The portal will contain the uploaded provincial road network maps, as well as videos of the conditions of priority roads before, during, and after the implementation of KALSADA. (with report from PNA)

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