MNDA bill ready in 2 weeks’ time

By Jason B. Neola

NO later than 2 weeks from now, the 18 member-local government units of the Metro Naga Development Council will be submitting its resolution that formally requests Senator Francis Tolentino to sponsor a bill creating the Metro Naga Development Authority (MNDA). Along with the resolution that will be handed personally to the senator is a copy of the bill itself.

In a press briefing conducted on June 26, this year, after the flag raising ceremony, Naga Mayor Nelson Legacion said that he hopes the MNDC can look for a congressman who could sponsor the same bill at the House of Representatives.

The Metro Naga Mayors, according to Legacion, have decided to consult first their respective Sangguniang Bayan officials with regard to the membership of their LGUs to the MNDA before making any decision on the matter.

The 18 member-LGUs of the MNDC: Bombon, Bula, Canaman, Calabanga, Camaligan, Gainza, Libmanan, Magarao, Minalabac, Milaor, Pili, Naga, Ocampo, Pamplona, Pasacao, San Fernando, San Pascual Masbate, and Siruma.

Legacion said the MNDC, once established as MNDA, will achieve legal personality and shall maintain a bigger number of employees that will receive salaries from the national government thru the MNDA.

Legacion, the current chair of the MNDC, is spearheading the establishment of the MNDC as MNDA for it to acquire institutional power in carrying out its plan to provide adequate social services, promote employment, and improve the quality of life of the constituents.

Once organized into an MNDA, the Metro Naga LGUs are expected to benefit from services that are efficiently and effectively planned, supervised and coordinated by a development authority, of which the appropriations will be sourced from the national government’s General Appropriations Act.

A development authority is mandated to perform planning, monitoring, and coordinative functions, and in the process shall exercise regulatory and supervisory authority over the delivery of the different services and projects in its jurisdiction.

In Metro Naga, Legacion said the projects and services that the MNDC wishes to consider as priority projects are: road connectivity, solid waste disposal and management, sewerage and storm water management, and disaster risk reduction management.

Development authorities also undertake services that have metro-wide impact and transcend legal political boundaries or entail huge expenditures such that it would not be viable for said services to be provided by the individual local government units under its jurisdiction.