Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 7) – A lawmaker has flagged the existence of “alien projects” or those unvalidated by District Engineering Offices in the Department of Public Works and Highways proposed budget in 2024.
Lagman on Thursday urged the agency to “cleanse” its budget of alien projects during the House Committee on Appropriations’ deliberations for the DPWH funding in 2024.
He explained that alien projects are those which crept into the DPWH’ s 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) without scrutiny or validation by the respective District Engineering Offices.
“These projects impair the Congressional District’s amount ceiling and crowd out validated priority infra projects,” Lagman said.
Asked how many of these alien projects were in the budget and how much these were worth, Lagman told CNN Philippines through text message: “It is hard to quantify now. What is important is that the ‘alien projects’ admittedly exist nationwide.”
The congressman added: “In the event that these alien projects are subsequently validated and are necessary and relevant, they should be included after this submission of the NEP to the Congress.”
For his part, DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan committed that the agency would undergo a period of realignment or “errata” before submitting the final version of its budget to Congress.
