GHOST PROJECTS ARE not limited to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
This comes as the Health Secretary Ted Herbosa admitted that the Department of Health (DOH) is digging deep into 297 ghost super health centers that were built from 2021 onwards.
“The other [projects] are completed while the others are in different phases of completion,” Secretary Ted Herbosa was quoted as saying in an interview following an inspection of an incomplete health center in Barangay Concepcion II in Marikina City.
CLOSE TO GHOST
According to Herbosa, quite a number of health centers — mostly in Luzon — have remained unfinished, including that of the uncompleted “super health center” in Marikina City.
Herbosa explained that under existing rules governing small facilities, health centers should be finished within two years. However the ghost projects, he added, just passed the first phase and have yet to proceed to the second phase.
“My objective as the Health Secretary is to make sure that all these 297 [health centers] are functional,” Herbosa told reporters.
ADDRESSING GAPS
The DOH chief has designated the Health Facilities Enhancement Project, which was created solely to address gaps in public health infrastructure, to handle the Investigation.
He also said that there could be more unfinished health centers in the country, but the agency will be coordinating with Local Government Units (LGUs), which he claimed has the responsibility to ensure that the centers that were funded by the agency will be completed.
Meanwhile, the Marikina City government slammed the DOH for what they described as “misleading and irresponsible claims.”
NOT ENTIRELY TRUE
In a statement, the city government noted that the funds released by the DOH only covered the first phase, which was already completed and certified by the DOH itself.
“Despite follow-ups from the City, no additional funding for the succeeding phases has ever been released by the DOH,” the LGU added.
The city government likewise emphasized that the construction delay “does not lie with the city alone. It lies with the DOH’s failure to provide full project funding.”
WASTED RESOURCES
In an apparent effort to come up with a solution, the city government hinted at continuing the construction of the project using local funds to ensure quality medical care for its residents.
However, the idea doesn’t seem to sit well with Herbosa who claimed that the construction of phase two could not commence as the “as built” plan could not be turned over by the constructor of the first phase to the second one.