DOTr blacklists contractors in PNR toilet fiasco
The Department of Transportation (DOTr) has blacklisted four contractors involved in the botched P295.8-million toilet facilities improvement project of the Aquino administration, an official said yesterday.
Photos of three toilet bowls, without dividers, in one restroom at a PNR station recently went viral on social media.
DOTr communications director Goddes Libiran told The STAR that Secretary Arthur Tugade signed orders to blacklist iFoundation Builders, Maga Construction & Supplies, V.O. Chupuico and Wismon Construction & Dev’t Corp. over the failed Kayo ang Boss Ko (KBK) project.
“There is also an ongoing investigation, evaluation and inspection of the facilities,” she said.
Tugade also signed a special order last April reconstituting the inspection and acceptance committee for the KBK project.
The KBK toilet facilities improvement project was part of the Aquino administration’s infrastructure program in 2012, aimed at providing safe, comfortable, fresh and clean toilets for those transacting with agencies under the defunct Department of Transportation and Communications.
In its 2017 audit report, the Commission on Audit (COA) reiterated its findings last 2014 and 2015 on the KBK project and said the DOTr has yet to provide an inventory report on the used and unused construction materials.
Libiran said the agency intends to submit the inventory report soon.
“The inventory is ongoing. We just cannot do it in a short span of time because it involves more than a thousand toilets nationwide, not just in Metro Manila,” she said.
The COA report said the project had an overall physical delivery rate of only 53.17 percent as of 2016.