CHINESE contractor Hunan Road and Bridge Construction Group Ltd. will have to face the Cebu City Council and explain why it threatened to quit working on the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Package One.
Cebu City Councilor Rey Gealon proposed a resolution during the City Council’s regular session on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, in response to rumors that the contractor would stop working on the 2.38-kilometer package along Osmeña Boulevard.
“News discloses that the private contractor Hunan Road and Bridge Construction Group Ltd. of the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (CBRT) Package One has threatened to stop its construction works if the Department of Transportation (DOTr) cannot release the agreed initial 10 percent of the total contract as mobilization fund,” according to Gealon’s resolution.
The contractor has been awarded the P900 million project that would create the BRT infrastructure from the Cebu South Bus Terminal at N. Bacalso Avenue to the entire stretch of Osmeña Boulevard going to the Cebu Provincial Capitol.
The entire BRT project has a budget of P16.3 billion divided into three packages.
Deadline
Hunan Road has started working even though the mobilization fund has not yet been released as it attempts to catch up with the deadline for completing the project under the contract.
The first-term council member said stopping construction work will disrupt the movement of drivers and passengers and put off the project’s completion, which is scheduled for December 2023.
During the session, it had not been determined on which day of the council session the officials of Hunan Road and Bridge Construction Group Ltd. will be summoned, but Gealon revealed that the secretariat will check the exact date and notify the contractor as soon as possible.
The DOTr has been given until June 15 to pay the agreed amount, according to City Councilor Jerry Guardo, who is the chairman of the committee on infrastructure.
According to CBRT project manager Norvin Imbong, they are about to sign the check to pay the contractor. (PAC)