Monday, August 27, 2007 Keep Asean street lamps working
THE Lapu-Lapu City Government has demanded for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 to make sure all the street lamps it installed for the Asean Summit last January are still working and have power supply.
After the city’s old but functioning lamps were pulled out and replaced with those purchased by the DPWH, some Lapu-Lapu streets are now unlighted.
Portions of M.L Quezon Highway and MV Patalinghug Ave. are dark at night because many the lampposts are no longer working.
The Office of the Ombudsman has preventively suspended several DWPH officials over the procurement, under a P120-million contract, of lampposts that are suspected to be overpriced.
The City Council wanted DPWH to repair the lampposts whether or not they are defective or in cases where the electric cords were disconnected or stolen.
“DPWH has not been fair and reasonable. It has failed to maintain and keep the utility of the project as its purpose,” the council said in a resolution approved on mass motion Wednesday last week.
DPWH was also told to settle on time the lampposts’ electric bills.
Mayor Arturo Radaza said that investors and businessmen came to his office and expressed alarm over the safety of city streets.
Dim places, he was warned, usually become havens of criminals aside from being traffic accident-prone.
“Because the decorative lamps have not been turned over to the City, the situation can be blamed on the DPWH alone, not on us,” he said.
Radaza was among those preventively suspended for six months along with nine DPWH officials, former Mandaue City mayor Thadeo Ouano, and other employees of the two cities over the controversial lampposts.
Because of the Aguinaldo doctrine, however, his reelection last May 14 meant that he was absolved of any administrative liabilities in the lamps deal. (AIV)
