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KINUWESTIYON ni Kabataan Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon kahapon ang 14-porsiyentong pagtaas sa budget ng National Irrigation Administration (NIA) para 2016, na ang bulto ay nakalaan para sa National Capital Region (NCR).
Bago ang congressional deliberation para sa panukalang budget ng Department of Agriculture (DA) at Office of the Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization (OPAFSAM) kahapon, sinabi ni Ridon, may ilang kuwestiyonable at “corruption-prone” items sa P32.7-billion NIA budget.
“For one, when you look at the regional distribution of the NIA budget, you can see that the P13.1 billion NCR irrigation budget is P7 billion more than the budget allotted for Central Luzon, which is only P6 billion. Now here’s the question: Why does the irrigation budget for NCR trump the budget for the country’s so-called rice granary?” Ang NIA ay ahensiyang nasa ilalim ng pangangasiwa ng OPAFSAM.
Ipinunto ni Ridon, kahit na ang NIA ay makakuha nang mas malaking budget kada taon, ang mga magsasaka ay magbabayad pa rin ng dalawa hanggang tatlong kaban ng palay para sa irigasyon sa bawat pag-ani.
“We’ve got a bloated irrigation budget, which is almost 30 times higher than its budget in P1-billion budget 2014, yet ask our farmers and they will surely lament the huge sum they are paying for irrigation. Why can’t NIA offer free irrigation despite the fact that the agency is literally being inundated with funds? Large-scale corruption may be at fault,” punto ni Ridon.
Diin ni Ridon, mula sa P32.7 billion NIA budget, P2.9 bilyon ang maikokonsidera bilang lump sum pork, na aniya’y maaaring maabuso at posibleng magamit sa “ghost irrigation projects.”
(J. SINOCRUZ)
