New Cebu City mayor seeks rebid of P553-M reclamation project

CEBU CITY — The transition team of mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña ruled yesterday that there should be a rebidding of the South Reclamation Project’s horizontal infrastructure project.

In a meeting with the members of the transition team yesterday, the Pre-Bids and Awards Committee admitted that the bidding of the P553 million stage 1 of the SRP infrastructure project was without the mandatory requirement of Certificate of Availability of Funds or CAF. Paul Villarete, a member of the transition team, said that the discussion on the bidding of the SRP infrastructure project is "already moot and academic."

During the discussion between the two groups, it was found that the SRP infrastructure project was not appropriated in the city’s annual budget before it was bid out to contractors.

Its funding is to be taken from the extra money from the loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation for the SRP reclamation.

The bidding of the SRP infrastructure project has been narrowed down to Toyo Construction and Kawasaki Steel Corp. and is already with the PBAC technical committee for further evaluation.

Both contractors priced the project way over its approved estimated cost, with Toyo Construction pegging the cost at P1 billion while Kawasaki priced it at P719 million.

The transition team also found that the PBAC disqualified four other competitive bidders because they submitted only photocopies of their Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board or receipts that they have already acquired such.

The PBAC was confronted by the transition team with the position of the JBIC which stated that the requirement should be considered only during the awarding of the contract and not the pre-bidding.

Jose Jonas Salas, Mayor Alvin Garcia’s representative to the PBAC, however, said they only received the copy of the JBIC position paper after they had decided to disqualify the bidders.

The project that has been bid out is the first of three stages of the SRP infrastructure project. It covers 67.3 of the SRP’s 300 hectares. Among its items of work are the construction of roads, drainage system, water purification system, Sewerage Treatment Plant and an underground utilities system. — Freeman News Service