BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The provincial government of Negros Occidental is now consolidating its savings for the purchase of Covid vaccines, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said yesterday.
By the first week of February, Diaz said they may be able to determine the amount of savings from Personal Services, Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses, and other programs and projects that had been cancelled.
Aside from the savings, Diaz said they also have other sources for the purchase of the vaccines.
Vice-Governor Jeffrey Ferrer also aired his support on the move of the provincial government to purchase the vaccines, following reports of a new variant of the coronavirus in Britain.
Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya earlier said that local government units may purchase their own supply of coronavirus vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration, as augmentation to the national government effort to inoculate constituents, who are not part of the priority population of the national government’s vaccination program. Among the priorities of the government’s vaccination plan are medical frontliners, senior citizens, indigent Filipinos, and the uniformed personnel.*