Tuesday, March 11, 2008 Scantel doubts it can beat deadline By Danilo V. Adorador III
THE contractor of Cagayan de Oro's bungled P49 million Barangay Telephone System Project said it might not be able to beat the mid-April deadline imposed by the city government.
Joey Lozano, project manager of the Supplier Contractor and Networking Telecommunication (Scantel) Inc., said the company is uncertain of meeting the April 17 deadline as the "series of work schedules aimed at completing the project" is shared between Scantel and the City Planning Office.
Still, Lozano said they would try their "best to finish it despite the time constraint."
Like the City Planning Office, Scantel had earlier mistakenly assumed that the 94-deadline given last December by Mayor Constantino Jaraula had not yet taken effect.
City Hall issued the deadline amidst mounting calls for the completion of the anomalous project, which started way back in 2003 but had remained dormant since, despite the P31 million already paid to the Scantel.
Lozano said signal optimization activities in at least 12 crucial locations are ongoing, while repeaters-devices that would boost network signals transmitted over a long span-have been installed in at least three hinterland villages.
He said the phones that were installed to 17 recipient upland villages are also being replaced, at the company's expense.
The City Planning for its part, the Scantel official said, is working for a co-location agreement with a private telecommunications firm, which seeks to transfer the Cagayan de Oro transmitter to the Misamis Oriental town of Manticao.
City Planning Officer Estrella Sagaral had earlier said the co-location agreement was still pending at the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).
A call seeking comment wasn't returned by Sagaral's office Monday afternoon.
Lozano meantime lamented Scantel and the City Government should have shared the costs of replacing the old phones and other telecommunication equipments.
"Ang nangyayari kasi kami pa ang uma-abuno e (What is happening is that we are the ones who are shouldering the costs)," he told Sun.Star in a phone interview.
Jaraula rejected the idea, saying the infusion of additional public funds to the project is against the law.
The Barangay Telephone System Project is one of major controversies hounding the former administration.
A 2006 Commission on Audit (COA) report suggested that the project jumped off without the benefit of a feasibility study.
This was admitted by no less than the Scantel president, Francisco Villapando, who confirmed earlier that government and Scantel technicians failed to anticipate that some recipient barangays are located behind the mountains where the transmitter stood, thus the absence of communication signals.
The COA said the project "incurred substantial delay because of the non-completion of technical requirements needed in the implementation of the project thus depriving beneficiaries of adequate and efficient telephone system."
Villapando also blamed the failure largely to a former company official who he said had mismanaged the project. The official has left Scantel, but Villapando declined to elaborate when asked whether it had something to do with the project.
The Telepono sa Barangay project forms part of the plunder charges filed against former mayor Vicente Emano and other officials.
