THE website containing WT Construction’s 12-page complaint against the Capitol over the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) is no longer available.
Www.among.reklamo.ph, registered under the name Consumer Complaints Center Inc., with address on the 15th floor of the LPL bldg. on Leviste St. in Makati City, has “expired” as of Feb. 20.
There is a waiting list of interested individuals or entities who want the domain name but www.domains.ph has not supplied a listing.
The last entry to the site was businessman Crisologo Saavera’s motion for intervention in the civil suit the WT Construction filed before Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Esther Veloso.
The post would have been a follow-up of the original 12-page complaint that WT Construction had filed.
Taxpayer’s right
Saavedra described his motion for intervention as having been submitted in his capacity as a taxpayer “who would like to have a say on how government money is spent.”
He wants the court to direct the Province not to pay the added P162 million it owes the WT Construction for portions of work it performed relative to the CICC project.
Saavedra said that as a taxpayer and a resident of Cebu, he has a legal interest in the case filed by WT Construction, which asked the court to direct the Province to pay its “unpaid” P162 million for the additional works of the CICC.
The work, Saavedra has stressed, isn’t part of the original contract between the Capitol and WT Construction but had been “accommodations” made by the firm upon the request of people inside the Provincial Government.
So, he said, the P261 million should be declared a personal liability and not an obligation to be shouldered by “the people of Cebu.”
Judge Veloso is expected to hear the motion for intervention within the week.
More follow-ups
While pursuing the intervention, Saavedra is also following up the anti-graft investigation the ombudsman’s office has launched to check alleged anomalies in the CICC contract.
The anomalies, he said, included the splitting of contracts and the Province’s entering into negotiated transactions. These, he said, conspired to increase the overall cost of the project way beyond the approved agency budget.
WT Construction, in the original complaint, wanted the Capitol to release a total of P162 million. The amount, based on the complaint, covered works that included site development, structural, architectural, plumbing and electrical works.
The contractor also demanded a 12 percent interest on unpaid bills until full payment is given, plus P5 million in exemplary damages and P150,000 for attorney’s fees and litigation expenses.
Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia earlier said the Capitol only spent P581.273 million for the CICC project—way below the P637.4 million allocated for it.
Almost immediately, however, reports surfaced that the governor may have excluded certain items.
The reports were confirmed when WT Construction submitted an additional billing statement of P261,217,886.06. (KNR)
