Magpale, PB brace for charges

ACTING Gov. Agnes Magpale said the Provincial Board (PB) is expecting charges to be filed if they allow a winning bidder to supply the Capitol with P227 million worth of heavy equipment.

Magpale and the PB had received text messages about the consequences if they support the purchase of the heavy equipment.

She said there could be cheaper equipment but their suppliers did not join the bidding.

The winning bidder, RDAK/ConEquip, will supply the Capitol with 27 units of 15 kinds of heavy equipment, with a total cost of P227 million.

For example, nine units of 6-wheeler dump trucks are worth P4.65115 million as priced by RDAK/ConEquip. The prevailing rate, however, is almost half the price.

Unya katong last nga niingon sila, naay mas barato wa man lagi mo bid (Suppliers who said they have cheaper prices didn’t join the bidding),” said Magpale.

Fish ponds

Bid documents showed that RDAK/ConEquip’s price for a crawler tractor (dozer), Komatsu D6EX-16, is P21.6 million. A source who asked not to be named said this is a small dozer unit used for carving out fish ponds.

The big ones for road building are D80/85 and D65s, which cost around P8 million to 10 million.

Magpale said complaints aired by news commentaries had been discussed and explained by the bids and awards committee (BAC) members during their caucus and during discussions at the PB.

Papers

Ang among gitan-aw kadto mang papers nga naa diha sa among atubangan. Wala mi mangita og kinsa pa man dihay barato (What we looked into were the papers that were in front of us),” Magpale said yesterday.

She said it will be a disservice to Cebuanos if they are deprived of the services of heavy equipment in road opening, repair and maintenance because the acquisition of the equipment is delayed.

Limpiyo ang akong konsiyensiya mao nga atubangon nako ang kaso (I will face the charges with a clean conscience),” she told reporters yesterday.

Since last year, the Capitol has been conducting public biddings for the equipment.

But Gov. Hilario Davide III declared last July that the bidding where ConEquip won was a failure.

To dispel doubts about the integrity of the Capitol’s procurement process, Davide declared the bidding a failure.

The bidding of the equipment also was a campaign issue in the last elections.

Capitol conducted another public bidding, and ConEquip, in a joint undertaking with RDAK, won again.

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