THE Iloilo Provincial Government said that the construction for the improvement of the capitol is not overpriced.
During the regular press conference of Governor Arthur Defensor Sr. on Thursday, August 2, he pointed out that the public said that the construction currently occurring has an excessive budget.
“It’s not only an improvement in front of the capitol, we are constructing a multi-level parking building,” Defensor said.
The improvement has four packages with an allotted P400-million budget from the province which includes the multilevel parking building, front of the Capitol building up to the Casa Real, area adjacent to the Regional Museum and power station.
The Package 1 is the six-storey multilevel parking with P185 million; contract amount with P185,196,660 and has an approved budget of P196 million.
The Package 2, fronting the capitol building up to the Casa Real has a contract amount of P69,803,507 and approved budget of P70,212,000.
Package 3, the area adjacent to the Regional Museum has a contract amount of P52,179,000 and approved budget of P54 million.
Lastly, the Package 4 that covers the power station has a contract amount of P18,883,000 and approved budget of P20,084,000.
According to the Provincial Administrator Raul Banias, the project is expected to be finished by the first quarter next year.
“The engineers always consult the index price of the government so per square meter was for the approved budget for the contract then, they submit their competitive bids for that and there is no overprice because the bidding process includes if the estimation are overpriced,” Banias said.
Defensor stressed that the people considered that the parking building has a huge amount of budget, however, he said that they only follow the design recommendation of the architect wherein, “it is not good only for 10 years, 15 years or 100 years.”
“It will be a building that will stand as a pride of province of Iloilo for many, many years and century to come,” Defensor said. (Carolyn Jane Abello)