Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has terminated the city’s contract with the Geety Realty and Development Corp. which is undertaking the Carbon Market Unit II reconstruction project.
Osmeña cited work slippage, underqualification and falsification of documents as the main grounds for the cancellation of the contract which has been extended by the city several times already.
In his letter addressed to the contractor, Osmeña pointed out that they have already a negative slippage of 35.21 percent and a delay of 196 days in the completion of the project which costs P167 million.
He also said that the city discovered that the contractor made several revisions of the plans for the project without the imprimatur of the mayor, which is a violation of the contract implementation guidelines for the procurement of infrastructure projects.
He also referred the order to the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) Infrastructure and Consulting Services for appropriate action.
Osmeña, when he was not yet a mayor, filed a complaint at the Visayas Ombudsman against then Mayor Michael Rama over the Carbon Unit II project involving Geety, which
Osmeña described as an anomalous project.
In an exit conference with city officials last June, the Commission on Audit (COA) had already recommended that the city cancel its contract with Geety for the project due to the delays.
The contractor started the project in April 2013 and was supposed to complete it after one year. But, until now, the project is not even 75 percent complete.
In an interview yesterday, Osmeña said Geety is not authorized to undertake a project that is over P50 million, but the city government, under the Rama administration, approved the contractor’s bid for it.
“We are going to file charges against all the members of BAC, the previous BAC. Geety also fabricated their BIR clearance,” he said.
He also said that the city would do a formal assessment on the actual progress of the project and after which, the city would re-bid the project for the remaining work needed for the market project.