Tomas orders termination of contract

Osmeña said that Geety Realty and Development Corp. was delayed by 196 days Delays in the P167-million project had already been pointed out by COA in their annual report for the City’s transaction and operations in 2015

AFTER the project failed to be completed on time, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña ordered the termination of the contract for the multi-million construction of Unit II in Carbon Market Complex.

Osmeña said that Geety Realty and Development Corp. was delayed by 96 days.

That represented 35.21 percent of the project that the contractor was supposed to have accomplished.

“You are hereby notified that the whole contract is ordered terminated on the ground of default or undue delay in the prosecution of the contract of work,” said the mayor in his twopage order.

He cited the provisions of Republic Act 9184, or the Government Procurement Act, which allows the termination of a contract for a slippage of 10 percent or more in the completion of the work.

Osmeña referred the project to City Hall’s bids and awards committee (Bac) for infrastructure and consulting services for appropriate action.

The slippage of Geety for the P167-million project had already been pointed out by the Commission on Audit (COA) in their annual report for the City’s transaction and operations in 2015.

The project, they said, began on April 24, 2013 and was supposed to be completed 360 days after, or on April 18, 2014.

Work on the first phase, which covers the ground floor and the second floor, was suspended twice—on May 3 and Oct. 2, 2013—because the contractor still had to get a permit from the City Government.

COA said the contractor resumed the construction on Jan. 6, 2014, eventually changing the date of completion to Dec. 21, 2014.

A new deadline was set on March 21, 2015 or after 90 days.

However, the deadline was again extended for 90 days, ending on June 19, 2015. The project completion date was moved to Sept. 17, 2015, then to Dec. 16, 2015.

After all the extensions, COA lamented that the contractor accomplished only 62 percent of the project as of April 2016. The City paid Geety P103.7 million so far.

This prompted them to recommend to the City to cancel the contract of Geety.

Private contractor

In his press conference yesterday, the mayor said an assessment will have to be done by the City on how much work has been done by the private contractor.

“Then we will have to bid out the balance of the work that has to be done,” he said.

Aside from the slippage, Osmeña said he decided to terminate the contract of Geety because they are not authorized to undertake a project worth more than P50 million upon verification from the Philippine Contractors’ Accreditation Board.

He also alleged that Geety fabricated their clearance from the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

According to the mayor, he is planning to file a case against the previous BAC members of the City over the “anomalous” transaction.

Osmeña said he intends to meet with the vendors in Carbon to explain to them why he needs to terminate Geety’s contract.

“As usual they are blaming me. How can you blame me? The corruption is not mine. It is my job to protect the interest of the city,” he said.

The City is rebuilding Unit II after it was razed by fire in 1998 that displaced hundreds of vendors.