COA: Probe poor quality Zambo City road projects

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Audit (COA) is calling for an investigation into road concreting projects in Zamboanga City worth over P26.4 million after it discovered cracks that suggest poor quality of work or materials used.

In a report released recently, state auditors said contractors should also be required to repair the roads at their own expense.

The audit team noted that scaling and longitudinal, transverse and crisscrossed cracks were prevalent in a number of road concreting projects accepted and paid by the city government from July 2010 to June 2011.

In their 2010 audit report, state auditors said they already noted the same problems in various projects completed from January 2010 to June 2010.

“The same observation was also noted during the inspections conducted in 2011 on projects completed and paid by the city government during the period July 2010 to June 2011,” COA said in its latest report.

Of 50 projects worth P50,423,096 inspected last year, 20 projects with a total contract cost of P26,401,457 had transverse, diagonal and longitudinal cracks or scaling.

“These defects could indicate poor quality/substandard projects which could be attributable to the performance of the contractor,” the audit team said.

In its 2011 report, COA said Zamboanga City officials must require the contractors to repair all defective portions of these road projects.

“We also recommend that management conduct a thorough investigation as to the causes of the cracks which may not be altogether attributable to the fault of the contractor but to the lack of a thorough detailed engineering, such as but not limited to survey, site investigation, soils and foundation investigation aside from traffic load consideration which are inputs in the preparation of design plans and technical inspection to minimize defects,” the audit team said.