Mayor Sara Duterte admitted that the pace of the distribution of relief goods to some barangays has been slow due to a problem on logistics.
In an interview with Davao City Disaster Radio on Tuesday, Duterte said the schedule set by the City Social Services and Development Office (CSSDO) has not been followed due to the slow transport of these relief goods in the barangays.
“We are using the wrong trucks. This has been a challenge during our first days of delivering these relief goods,” she said.
She said the dump trucks cannot deliver the desired number of goods per barangay on the scheduled time due to space constraints.
Duterte said they have already reserved four wing vans to be used to deliver the goods instead of dump trucks. In a wing van, she said, it can carry up to 5,000 grocery items, while dump trucks can only deliver around 800 goods.
“Since our grocery items to be given to the beneficiaries are big because it should last six to seven days, it takes a lot of space. That is why, only 800 goods have been delivered instead of the desired number,” she said.
She said that the frequency of the delivery should be every seven days, but due to this slow transporting of goods, they decided to extend the distribution and make a new system.
“We should replace these dump trucks with wing vans, otherwise, if the delivery is this slow, (following) we have hundreds to thousands to deliver, then it can be that there will be a convergence of the first, second, and third round of distribution. If that happens, then people may not have time to rest,” she said.
Once the wing vans are available, these dump trucks would be used for other projects.
“We still have other projects. Even with COVID-19 around, we still are doing some things aside from the virus matters. If we will be allotting all our dump trucks to deliver these goods, then the City Engineer’s Office project will be delayed,” she said.
Duterte also reminded the public and the barangay officials to observe the proper protocols while distributing the rationed goods. Everybody is mandated to observe proper social distancing.
