BACOLOD City Councilor Ricardo Tan yesterday expressed dissatisfaction over the monthly monitoring report submitted by the Department of Public Service (DPS) on the performance of garbage contractor IPM-Construction and Development Corp. (IPM-CDC).
Tan said he received the report of DPS from the City Mayor’s Office on October 17, and he accused DPS head Nelson Sedillo as biased.
He said based on the DPS brief situationer, the department immediately showed its biases in defending the failure of the contractor to effect total clean-up in the city.
“The DPS should report the actual condition of garbage in the city,” Tan added.
The DPS stated in its report that because of the anticipated tremendous backlogs left behind by the previous contractor, IPM-CDC experienced difficulty for more than three weeks in removing the old garbage piling up and left rotten within their area of collection.
It added: “This is one of the reasons that in spite of the intensive effort by IPM-CDC to implement clean-up operation there were still remnants of the old ‘tambakan’ noticeable in some parts of the city which they are already trying to remove at the moment.”
“This statement only shows that the DPS acted as a spokesman of the contractor. They justified the failures of the contractor,” Tan said.
Last month, the City Council required the DPS to submit a monthly monitoring report and accomplishment of the contractor.
With regard to IPM’s compliance with the terms of reference, the report of DPS is only limited to quantitative appraisal of the equipment, the councilor said.
“There is no inclusion of qualitative data to determine the total volume of garbage in the city. They only submitted the total volumes of garbage collected by IPM-CDC,” he said.
Tan added that the report of the DPS is nothing but an attempt to justify the contractor’s failure. They failed to report the actual accomplishment of the contractor.
The councilor said he expects that by next month, the DPS will improve its report.
Tan also criticized the IPM-CDC for failure to provide protective gears to its garbage collectors.
“The contractor should also address the health and safety of their employees. It is their legal and moral obligation,” he added.