THE Metro Manila Development Authority is open to suggestions and partnership with the private sector who would want to help the agency in its mandate, including the flood control program, MMDA officer-in-charge Thomas Orbos said Monday.
Orbos said the agency is encouraging private individuals and other sectors to come up with proposals and innovative projects with the use of advance technology to aid the agency on its mandates like flood control, solid waste management, health and public safety, and urban planning and renewal.
He said the MMDA is open to suggestions and partnerships with the private sector and individuals, foreign and local, in formulating smart-city concepts and IT-based solutions to the various mandates of the agency.
“We are continuously encouraging them to engage the agency about their concepts and technological solutions. We know that there are individuals and groups out there who are willing to help the government,” Orbos said.
He said a number of private individuals and groups have already approached him and pledged to share and apply their skills and talents to address the perennial problems in Metro Manila like massive flooding and solid waste disposal.
Though the agency has managed to hasten the subsiding rate of flooding in low-laying areas of Metro Manila, Orbos said there is still room for improvement.
“We are aware that talents abound our country. That’s why we are appealing to them to share their know-how on these concerns to the agency,” the MMDA official said.
He said that a technical working group will accept and subsequently evaluate the feasibility or the practical application of the proposals, subject to his approval.
The MMDA is also eyeing to utilize drones equipped with cameras to augment the agency’s present monitoring system.
The MMDA was first created during the Marcos administration, but was re-constituted in 1990 with the creation of the Metropolitan Manila Authority which later evolved to become the MMDA following the enactment of Republic Act 7924, also known as the MMDA Charter.
The agency was vested with “planning, monitoring, and coordinative functions and, in the process, exercise regulatory and supervisory authority over the delivery of metro-wide services within Metro Manila without diminution of the autonomy of local government units (LGUs) concerning purely local matters.”
RA 7924 included development planning, transport and traffic management, solid waste disposal and management; flood control and sewerage management, urban renewal, zoning, land use planning and shelter services, health and sanitation, urban protection and pollution control; and public safety as among the metro-wide services it can offer.