Workers at the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) Connector Project, Caloocan to Espana, on February 9, 2023. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News
MANILA — The National Economic and Development Authority said it is looking to hasten the implementation of infrastructure projects by using a “dashboard” that will show the progress of each project.
NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan also said better coordination among various government agencies is needed to fast-track projects.
"Securing the permits, submission of requirements by the implementing agency so the NEDA board secretariat could complete its work... Many times, these submissions come in a piece-meal basis and so the complete assessment of the project could not be done," he said
Balisacan said they hope the dashboard will help speed up the process as implementing agencies will need to explain to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the public why some projects are delayed.
"We monitor closely the execution of the plans. That's what we promised to the President this afternoon, we would have a dashboard to show where we are at any particular point in time in relation to our baseline," he said.
The dashboard, he said, would "clearly identify what the bottlenecks are."
Balisacan said 194 infrastructure projects are in the pipeline of the administration's "Build Better More" program, while 68 are underway.
Nine projects, meanwhile, have yet to secure government approval, said Balisacan, and "some of these" may be approved before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr's State of the Nation Address in July.
All of the 194 infra projects, he said, will be completed or "largely completed" when the term of Marcos, Jr. ends in 2028.
"Many of these or some of these would spill into the next administration just like other projects... in the previous administration," Balisacan admitted to Palace reporters.
Earlier in the day, the NEDA board, chaired by Marcos, approved the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX) extension project and the investment coordination committee guidelines for private-public partnership projects at the local government level.
The TPLEX extension project can be considered among the "fastest, unsolicited proposal approval" after being approved today from its submission on March 17, 2023.