A lawmaker on Saturday called anew for a makeover of the National Irrigation Administration by instituting reforms to make the agency financially viable in providing free irrigation to farmers.
CamSur Rep. LRay Villafuerte noted that each year, the NIA has been requesting for higher and higher allocations under the national budget, and continues to receive humongous subsidies from the national government to maintain irrigation systems nationwide and fund its free irrigation program.
“The NIA despite being a state-owned firm, has been bleeding the government dry. It has even requested a higher budgetary allocation for next year as it has been doing so in the previous years, although its accomplishment rate is far from impressive,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte, vice chairperson of the House committee on appropriations, cited Bureau of Treasury reports showing that the NIA got P11.08 billion in subsidies in the first quarter —or more than five-fold the P2.06 billion acquired by the agency in the same quarter in 2016—that accounts for over half the P19.7 billion subsidies to government-owned and controlled corporations over that January-March 2017 period.
NIA officials earlier said the subsidies granted to it during the period were used to implement irrigation projects all over the country, as well as its free irrigation program.
In February alone, NIA received P8.957 billion or almost 90 percent of the subsidies to GOCCs granted in February, Villafuerte said.
The NIA has also proposed a P42-billion budget next year, which is 11 percent higher than this year’s allocation of P38 billion, he added.
At present, Villafuerte said 2.4 million hectares or 43 percent of farmlands in the country still lack irrigation, even though the NIA was given the “flexibility of a corporate vehicle and the administrative autonomy” to achieve its objectives under Republic Act 3601, which created the agency 53 years ago.
Villafuerte earlier filed House Bill 2133 asking the government to institutionalize free irrigation to farmers.
HB 2133 not only seeks to abolish irrigation fees and restructure the farmers’ unpaid fees, but also to revert the NIA to being a line agency under the Department of Agriculture (DA), Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte’s bill also aims to streamline the government’s irrigation development program and carry out its mandate of irrigating 100 percent of irrigable farmlands in the country within a four-year period.
He said his measure would provide the impetus for the NIA to overhaul its old system and arrest the sharp drop in farm product ivy.
“The proposed refocusing of NIA’s role and purpose further seeks to foster sustainable livelihood among its farmers through improvement in both farm productivity and increased income by abolishing existing laws prescribing the power and authority of the NIA to collect Irrigation Service Fees or other forms of charges for the use of irrigation systems,” Villafuerte said.