BAGUIO CITY – An anti-crime and corruption watchdog in the region is seeking the conduct of an honest to goodness audit of some ten multi-million projects being implemented by a lone construction company to ascertain the quality of the projects.
In his letter to regional director Joseph Anacay of the Cordillera office of the Commission on Audit (COA-CAR), Citizens Crime Watch – Cordillera Secretary-General Salvador Liked claimed that with the implementation of the numerous multi-million projects wherein some have allegedly expired contracts time and expiring contract time, there is a need for the COA-CAR to look into the performance of Jomarcann General Construction to validate the declared accomplishments whether the same are true or bloated,to see if there are no factual negative slippages of the projects, if the projects have negative slippages, is the contractor qualified to bid or awarded more projects in the region, check on the additional P100 million worth of projects awarded to the contractor despite such slippages and whether or not the award of more projects to a lone contractor is in violation of the procurement laws, rules and regulations.
The assailed Jomarcann General Construction include rehabilitation along Halsema highway with a project cost of P210.3 million; construction of science laboratory at the Irisan National High School worth P17.1 million; network development or road widening – P19.4 million; improvement along Jose Mencio farm to market road – P183.9 million; construction of 4sotrey scine laboratory at the Baguio City National High School – P39.2 million; construction of 4sotrey schience laboratory at the Sto. Tomas National High School – P37.9 million; road upgrading along Amburayan-Boneng provincial road – P43.8 million; rehabilitation of Acop-Kapangan-Kibungan-Bakun road P40 million; and construction of road leading to MPSPC property – P18 million.
Liked pointed out that it seems there is only one contractor who is being allegedly favoured to implement various infrastructure projects in the different parts of the region as if he is the only qualified contractor to bid all the said projects and implement the same at the same time.
According to the watchdog, it is impossible for a single contractor to be implementing all the awarded projets at the same time when the said projects are situated in different places that are not adjacent with each other, thus, the worksmaship of the projects will surely be compromised thereby depriving the public with their money’s worth.
Liked asserted that surely, some of the projects have negative slippages which should warrant the disqualification of the contractor from participating in the bidding of other infrastructure projects but it seems that Jomarcann is a favoured contractor of the Department of Public works and Highways (DPWH) as he continues to be awarded major infrastructure projects to implement even if he has not yet completed previously awarded projects.
By HENT
