THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it is open to expanding its flood-resilience initiatives in the Philippines as infrastructure projects come under closer scrutiny.
“We’re doing planning on 13 river basins around the country for a future project, and given what’s going on, we may be asked to do more,” ADB Country Director Andrew Jeffries told reporters on Thursday.
He noted that there might be discussions in the future on how the ADB can help address corruption in such projects.
“Our role isn’t to shy away from problems. Our role is to try to help our developing member countries’ governments solve problems,” he said.
Public works projects, particularly those connected to flood mitigation, have been found to be defective, uncompleted, or even never started despite billions in funding.
Mr. Jeffries said the ADB is currently working on two river basins in Mindanao and one in northern Luzon.
“We’re working on a larger one that’s a few years away. So we will be likely supporting flood protection more in the future,” he said.
He also said the ADB is also working on some waste management initiatives around Metro Manila, but is not currently involved in flood control in the capital region.
At the Arangkada Philippines Investment Forum, more digitalization was proposed as a means of curbing corruption and addressing the concerns of foreign investors.
“Digitalization opens the door to more equal access to information and I think some of those investments kind of can help on a lot of fronts, whether it’s government processes, improvement, but also dealing with more information transparency kind of helps on the corruption side, too,” Mr. Jeffries said.
Gonzalo J. Varela, the World Bank lead economist for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, said raising the quality of regulators is also crucial to ensure more competition in the market. — Aubrey Rose A. Inosante