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Saturday, February 28, 2004
Lack of bidding scored
By Karen M. Flores
CEBU CITY -- A committee of development planners criticized the Metro Cebu Development Project (MCDP) 3 for giving a Japanese firm, without bidding, a contract to install traffic lights at a portion of the Cebu South Coastal Road Project.
The infrastructure development committee (IDC) of the Regional Development Council (RDC) questioned the MCDP 3 representative in its meeting Friday about the awarding of the P30-million agreement to Kajima Construction Corp.
Emmanuel Rabacal, IDC chairman, became upset when MCDP 3 resident engineer Sukarno Tiannok informed them that the contract to put up traffic lights at five major intersections of the coastal road's portion in Talisay City was merely "added" to Kajima's contract.
Kajima, contractor of the P7-billion coastal road, is supposed to be in charge only of "civil works," which cover the construction, and should have no part in the traffic signals, Rabacal pointed out.
The contract to put up traffic lights and signals should have been bid out and not merely "given to the contractor just because they asked for it."
"It works that way? A company just asks for a contract and then it is given just like that? It's that easy? We, the taxpayers, have to pay for that P30 million, you know," an angry Rabacal said during the IDC meeting Friday morning.
Rabacal suspects there must have been strings pulled in order for the awarding to go so smoothly for Kajima.
"I know what is going on here. All this corruption," Rabacal noted.
For his part, Tiannok explained that MCDP 3 merely recommended to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Manila about the need for traffic lights at the coastal road in the side of Talisay City.
When DPWH-Manila approved this, he said the P30-million contract was "added" to Kajima's scope of work.
Traffic lights elsewhere in the road stretch will be taken up later.
The coastal road is also being proposed for fencing in order to safeguard the important road link against obstructions later.
During the briefing Friday, Tiannok said it will be an "urban highway" where the average speed of motorists will be between 40 and 60 kilometers per hour.
(February 28, 2004 issue)
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