BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Department of Public works and Highways (DPW-CAR) will be implementing more than five hundred infrastructure projects with a total cost of P13.5 billion around the region this year to help boost inter-connectivity among communities and spur economic growth in the countryside.
However, Engr. Albert Gahid, DPWH-CAR assistant regional director, said the agency is capable of implementing 85 percent of the funded road and bridge projects around the region up to the end of this year which will improve the status of road networks regionwide.
As of the end of 2016, Gahid noted that the region has only 153.5 kilometers of unpaved national roads, thus, the agency is nearing fully paving the 2,247 kilometers of national roads around the Cordillera.
The DPWH-CAR official considers the concreting of roads and the put-up of bridges as high impact projects by the agency because it will result in the speedy delivery of agricultural crops from the farms to the markets, the significant reduction of travel time of motorists from their points of origin to their points of destination and less wear and tear on motor vehicles which will help increase their economic life, among others.
According to him, after the paving of national roads, the agency will focus on the improvement of other road networks leading to the countryside to mitigate most of the problems caused by unpaved roads in remote villages around the region.
The DPWH-CAR official underscored the agency is doing its best to institute corrective measures to make sure that winning contractors will do their contracted works pursuant to project standards and specifications to lessen the waste of public funds due to substandard projects.
He explained that projects having a negative 5 percent slippage will be issued a first warning, for projects with negative 10 percent, the contractors will be issued a second warning while for projects that have negative 14 percent slippage, contractors will be issued a third and final warning.
For contractors that have incurred a negative 15 percent and above slippage, Gahid said the agency will be constrained to terminate the contract and re-advertise the project for bidding.
According to him, the slippages incurred by projects are always subject to investigation or validation as to the causes of the slippage and if the reasons are found out to be valid, the contractor will be allowed to pursue their awarded project subject to close monitoring by the assigned project engineers.
Among the valid reasons for the existence of slippages in the different infrastructure projects include natural calamities, road-right-of-way conflicts, regular weather disturbance and man-made problems beyond the control of the agency and the contractor.
By HENT
