BENGUET Electric Cooperative (Beneco) expressed support on the planned conduct of a public bidding for the maintenance, operation and upgrading of its street lights under the Smart City lighting project of Baguio City.
Beneco general manager Gerardo Versoza, in his communication to Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, requested for the city to forward to Beneco the approved terms of reference (TOR) for the project for the cooperative to have time to study and come up with a final position.
Versoza added the cooperative will use its available existing TOR for their talks with a third party who wishes to partner with the cooperative for the implementation of the project.
In the past years, Versoza said the cooperative continuous to receive calls and text messages from their consumers and barangay officials pertaining to busted street lights despite this being turned over to the city tasked to maintain and operate street lights.
“We are continuously being accused because apparently what the consumers know is that we are still obligated to maintain and operate the street lights for the general security of the people despite the fact that this have already been turned over to the city,” the letter stated.
Beneco turned over to the local government the management of its 8,000 streetlights after members of the Board of Directors decided to accept and approve the recommendation of management due to the huge operational expenses incurred by the electric cooperative in the past six years.
Since taking over the management of the city’s streetlights, 40% of the complaints received by its maintenance crew were replacement of busted streetlights.
Beneco is also spending over P6 million for the maintenance of the city’s street lights.
In 2011, the local legislative body approved Resolution 446, series of 2011 which provided for the terms of reference for the conversion of the street lighting system to LED and authorizing the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) to bid out the said project.
The BAC however was not able to successfully bid out the project in the past eight years due to issues and concerns raised by several members on technical matters that were never addressed.