- Access to electricity is not just seen as a necessity that will help improve the quality of life of individual consumers; but it will also spur economic growth in areas that will already be provided with such basic service offer.
ECs have until May 15 to justify budget requests
BY MYRNA M. VELASCO – May 5, 2023 03:19 PM
from Manila Bulletin
AT A GLANCE
Government-run National Electrification Administration (NEA) has given electric cooperatives (ECs) up to May 15 this year to submit documents justifying their request for budget for their sitio electrification program (SEP) and other priority projects.
In a statement to the media, NEA indicated that the documents to be turned in by the ECs shall include budget request, plan bill for materials, staking plan sheets, barangay electrification as well as board resolution that will be essential in the issuance of Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) by the Department of Budget of Management (DBM) for any required SEP funding.
The electrification agency similarly advised the power utilities to “limit the total project cost to P50 million per EC due to limited appropriation.”
To address any drawback on the release of funds, NEA reminded the ECs that they must be “fully liquidated from previous subsidy releases before the release of the new subsidy and must complete the project/s no later than December 31, 2023.”
NEA Administrator Antonio Mariano C. Almeda has accepted the new challenge of advancing the country’s level of electrification to 100 percent by 2028 or by the end of the Marcos administration.
Owing to that then, the NEA chief has directed all ECs “to fast-track the liquidation of their previously funded projects to get another round of the SEP budget.”
The last Duterte administration similarly targeted full nationwide electrification, but extreme budget constraint eventually defeated that goal.
As reckoned by the electrification agency, there are more than 12,000 sitios yet to be energized – and that will require aggregate budget of P18 billion for the entire target to be concretized.
However, the yearly budget allocation funneled to SEP was just hovering at P1.6 billion to P1.8 billion, and that was substantially short vis-à-vis the required funding for such undertaking.
On a per household basis, the estimate still runs at more than 1.0 million households not getting the rightful benefit of electricity service – and the bulk of that at more than 800,000 are those in Mindanao.
