SEVERAL village chiefs expressed their full support Monday to the continued management and maintenance of around 7,500 city streetlights by the Benguet Electric Cooperative.
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Hillside village chief Ferdianand Buccad, speaking before the City Council, claimed majority of village chiefs are in agreement to the proposal of turning over maintenance and management of city streetlights to Beneco.
He said village leaders came up with the decision after experiencing delays in repairs and other issues with the City Engineers Office (CEO) managing and maintaining the streetlights.
Buccad claimed it took more than a month for a simple repair or maintenance issue to be addressed by the CEO.
City Engineer Leo Bernardez said the delays are caused by having only one electrical engineer supervising a construction crew.
He said the CEO supports the transfer of maintenance and management of streetlights to Beneco expressed in their recommendation to the city mayor.
Last year, the city spent P37 million for consuming 455,000 kilowatt-hours, with the CEO incurring P4.5 million in maintenance expenses or an estimated P41.5 million in maintenance and management of streetlights last year.
With Beneco’s proposal of 12 burning hours of operation of the streetlights, Bernardez said the city will have to pay P46.5 million for maintenance and repair of the streetlights with an improvement in service, as the electric cooperative has enough manpower to repair streetlights.
However, Beneco maintenance chief Engr. Rocky Pallogan claimed the offer of the electric cooperative is for unmetered streetlights only, while those of the metered street will still be shouldered by the city.
For the additional burning hours, the city will have to pay P516,000 per month or P6.2 million per year for the streetlight operations.
Another problem raised by Bernardez is the budget of the CEO for the streetlights in 2012, which he claimed has been lowered, based on the proposal of the City Budget Office, where only P30 million was allotted for electric consumption and maintenance expenses; as P15 million has been allotted as capital outlay for the purchase of energy efficient light emitting diode (LED) street lights.
He said, although the LED lights is already in the pipeline, it will take at least a year from publication the acquisition and installation of these lights.
Thus, at the moment, the office suggests the transfer to Beneco as the proposal of the electric cooperative will be cost-effective as from January to October alone, the city consumption has already reached P33 million.
With the flat rate for 12 burning hours offered by Beneco, the city will probably save more based on their estimates, he said.
Councilor Nicasio Palaganas, meanwhile, asked Beneco if the city could incur savings by using its purchased power adjustment refund mandated by the Energy Regulatory Commission to cover for the additional expenses from the streetlight maintenance of Beneco.
However, Beneco legal officer Delmar Cariño said this cannot be done as a different order dictates the refund of 3.74 centavos per kilowatt-hour or P33 million to Baguio consumers which should be completed by the electric cooperative by May 2013.
With this, the councilors without a quorum in Monday’s session, said they have to conduct more consultations and suggested to barangay leaders to conduct hearings with residents as several barangays will be disadvantaged if only unmetered streetlights will be covered by the Beneco proposal. - (SunStar / by JM Agreda)
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