TALISAY City Mayor Eduardo Gullas wants the contract between the City and Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) reviewed and amended.
Gullas told reporters that it is time to amend the 22-year-old agreement, as he feels some of its provisions are disadvantageous to the City.
In a separate interview, MCWD spokesperson Charmaine Rodriguez-Kara said yesterday that they were willing to sit down with Gullas and discuss the matter.
In a press conference yesterday, Gullas said he sought a review of the agreement after City Legal Officer Giovanni Sususco recommended this after his own review of the 1994 MOA with the City.
One of Sususco’s recommendations was to amend the agreement as the present form has no clear provision on how much the City will receive from MCWD as share of its extraction from its diversion weir in Barangay Jaclupan.
Gullas said that based on information he received from City Treasurer Emma Macuto, MCWD would often provide the City at least P312,000 as share of its sales on a quarterly basis.
But with MCWD extracting more water, Gullas said the amount is not enough.
“Patuyang lang sila og extract og tubig sa ato, kahayahay nila no (They extract water from us at will)?” Gullas added.
Upland barangays
Another recommendation was to put up a provision that will assist upland barangays with their problems when it comes to water.
Gullas was told that almost all of the city’s mountain barangays don’t have stable water supply even though MCWD sources their water out from the Mananga River.
Based on Sususco’s recommendation, Gullas also wants at least one seat in MCWD’s Board considering that Talisay City is a host city for one of their water sources.
Gullas appointed City Councilors Rodi Cabigas, Richard Francis Aznar and Antonio Bacaltos Jr. to conduct their own review of the agreement and make the necessary amendments.
Gross sales
But Kara, in a separate interview, said that based on the 1994 agreement and provisions of the Local Government Code, Talisay City’s share of MCWD’s gross sales from the volume of water extracted from Jaclupan is only one percent.
From the one percent collected from their gross sales, MCWD will split the amount, with the City getting 65 percent and 35 percent for the host barangay.
Kara said that in their facility in Talisay City, they extract around 33,000 cubic meters (cbm) per day, which is just 10 percent of the 225,000 cbm average daily production that they have.
Majority of MCWD’s daily production is dependent on ground water sources.
But she admitted that not all upland barangays in Talisay City are served by them.
Kara said they plan to explain the matter to Gullas in a courtesy visit next week.
