Visiting official assures timely completion of US-funded road project in Samar

From the Philippine News Agency (Aug 27): Visiting official assures timely completion of US-funded road project in Samar

The US-funded road rehabilitation project in two Samar provinces will be finished by 2016 a top official of the Millennium Challenge Corporation has assured Tuesday.

MCC Deputy Vice President for Europe, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America Fatema Sumar said the road project is now 60 percent done.

“Our goal is to finish construction before May 25, 2016,” said Sumar, adding that contractors of the project are mandated to finish it before the deadline.

The official was in the province on Tuesday to inaugurate anti-poverty projects funded by the US government’s MCC.

Dubbed as the Secondary National Roads Development Project (SNRDP), the road has a total road length of 222 kilometers stretching from Paranas, Samar to Guiuan, Eastern Samar, traversing poor communities.

The USD214.4 million project started October 2012 and will be finished by 2016.

The project, is expected to boost economic activities and facilitate social service for the residents of the economically-depressed provinces of Samar Island.

The project is divided into four contract packages. Contract Package (CP) 1 with a PHP802 million funding, covers the rehabilitation of a 16.3km stretch from the Buray village in Paranas town to the Tenani village of the same town.

CP 2 covers road rehabilitation of 63.68km from Hinabangan town in Samar to Sulat in Eastern Samar. The contract is valued at PHP2.5 billion.

CP 3 is concentrated on the 64.58km traverse San Julian, Sulat, Balangkayan and Llorente in Eastern Samar. The total project cost is PHP2.46 billion.

The longest stretch at 77.51 kilometers falls under CP 4, stretching from Llorente town to Guian town. The cost is PHP2.2 billion.

Other than road upgrading project, the USD434 million compact package is also intended for support reforms and investments to modernize the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and to expand and improve a community-driven development project, Kalahi-CIDSS of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

MCC has a five year contract project supporting the Philippines government in the implementation of a sustainable economic growth and projects designed to help create the tools that local community needs to uplift themselves to be part of the inclusive growth.

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