Cebu division to have 100 school buildings
-A A +AThursday, May 27, 2010
THE administration of Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia will build 100 new school buildings this year using 30,000 bags of cement purchased in bulk by the Capitol.
The purchase became controversial when Vice Gov. Greg Sanchez Jr. alleged that the bags of cement were purchased for electioneering. Sanchez also alleged the bags of cement are now useless.
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Provincial Engineer Eulogio Pelayre said the 100 school buildings will be equivalent to 200 classrooms at two classrooms per unit. Each unit is estimated to be constructed with 300 bags of cement, or a total of 30,000 bags for the 100 units.
The school buildings will be built throughout the province, including far-flung islands.
Pelayre said the bulk purchase allowed Capitol to get a cheaper price for the cement, which is then released to contractors based on their needs.
Pelayre also said the bags of cement are not delivered in one time.
"Our target is 100 units of school buildings per year. We started last January and some units are ready for the opening of classes next month. By September, all the 100 units for this year will be completed," Pelayre said.
The cement to be used for the buildings that will be finished by July, August and September will be delivered when these are needed.
He said that sometimes, a truck of cement is delivered to the motor pool of the Cebu Engineering Office and is withdrawn by the contractor of the school building project in two or three days.
Exclusive
According to Pelayre, the cement that will be used for school building projects is exclusive to the project and won't be used for other purposes.
The other day, Sanchez said thousands of bags of cement were delivered to the different barangays during the campaign period.
He said these are now useless because these were not used for projects since barangay officials did not have counterpart funds for labor.
"We have no idea on barangay projects because we are not the implementing unit. Our office is only implementing projects for school buildings, provincial roads, provincial bridges and drainage," Pelayre said.
