After 10 years of mysterious delay, the Caramoan Small Water Impounding Project may finally be completed and start to irrigate at least 250 hectares of ricelands in around the town proper. But even if completed it will go down on record as the costliest irrigation system ever constructed with more than P400,000.00 spent to irrigate a hectare.
The DPWH Regional Office disclosed to CRANE MONITOR that funding for P9,925,000.00 was released under SAA 4903 dated September 15, 2005 for the completion of irrigation lands and payment of right-of-way claims. Funded originally under the 14th Yen Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) of Japan, the project was started on December 29, 1994 after a bidding conducted by DPWH Manila. It was supposed to be completed on December 28, 1996 by Green Asia Construction and Development Corporation, the original contractor. Original project cost was P87.896 million.
When the original contractor failed to finish the project under the timetable, the irrigation component was subsequently contracted to NFH Construction and later to NFI Construction. Additional funding was believed allocated for the subsequent contracts but the project remained unfinished just the same. By that time the project cost had reportedly ballooned to over P100 million.
The OECF loan used to finance the project had expired on December 20, 1998 from which time the Philippine government was supposed to already start paying the loan obligation without bringing any economic benefits to the people.
On September 30, 2003, a DPWH Region V team held a dialogue with Caramoan local officials and the Farmers’ Irrigation Association after which the DPWH Regional Office recommended that additional funding be made available for the multi-million peso foreign–assisted project, by then already described as a white elephant, to be able to serve its purpose.
Many Caramoanons had expressed apprehension that the project would have similar fate as the highly scandalous dendro thermal project of the Fuentebella administration in the 1980’s for which the government spent more than P40 Million but which yielded completely nothing to the people.
The on-going construction of irrigation canals is now under the supervision of DPWH Third Engineering District.
Meanwhile, the CRANE Project Monitoring Committee has sought to find out if adequate measures have been observed for the safety of residents of barangays Hanopol and San Roque down the Hanopol Dam should the structure collapse in case of earthquake or construction defect.
