Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez (right) at the the House Committee on Visayas Development meeting on the NIR presided by Rep. Jocelyn Sy Limkaichong (left)*
The implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act No. 12000 establishing the Negros Island Region will be published on Monday, Feb. 3 and the NIR will be officially operational after Feb 18, Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said.
Benitez joined a meeting on the NIR conducted by the House Committee on Visayas Development on Tuesday, Jan. 28, which was presided by Rep. Jocelyn Sy Limkaichong (Neg. Or., 1st District).
They convinced the Department of Budget and Management at the meeting to activate the account codes needed for the downloading of funds for the NIR regional offices so they can officially operate, he said.
They also agreed to the activating satellite offices of the various government agencies in all three provinces of the NIR – Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental and Siquijor, to bring government services closer to the people, he said.
“I told them that the roadmap of NIR should focus on enhancing technology to have one stop shops for the various agencies in all three provinces”, Benitez said.
Benitez said he told the DBM “this is the best opportunity to showcase a new region that embraces modern technology. The vision is to be able to bring the government closer to the people and one way of doing that is really leveraging on technology,” he said.
Benitez stressed the need to use technology to create a modern region that can be a model for all the other regions.
Benitez said he earlier signed the IRR with reservations because the creation of satellite offices in its three provinces was not included.*