After taking two years to proceed with the procurement of P227-million worth of light and heavy equipment that will be used for road repairs and maintenance in the province, the project has yet met another delay — the Capitol’s loan has expired and will need to be reapplied.
This means a few more months of waiting for the approval of the monetary board of the Capitol’s loan re-application with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP).
Yesterday, however, the Provincial Board finally gave Gov. Hilario Davide III, the go signal to enter into a contract agreement with the joint venture of ConEquip Philippines Inc./RDAK Transport Equipment Inc. for the procurement of equipment.
Provincial Budget Officer Danilo Rodas said that the equipment had not been ordered yet because the their previous loan with the LBP had already expired, despite being extended until January of this year.
With the expiration of the loan on top of the extension granted, the provincial government had to re-apply for a new loan, covering the same amount as set in the original loan, which is around P200 million out of the P227 million total procurement cost.
He said the remaining P27 million will be taken from the provincial government funds.
Rodas said that they had anticipated the expiration of the loan and subsequent requirement of re-application and had already filed the necessary papers last month.
“So ang proseso ani, di na pwede i-re-extend. I-reapply na gyud. Prior sa mu-expire, nag-reapply na ta daan. Ato na gyud to gi-anticipate tungod atong issue sa bidding. So gi-anticipate nato, nagkataon lang nga wala pa gyud kay tua pa sa monetary board, (We can’t re-extend the loan and we need to reapply the loan application. We had anticipated it after the issues on the bidding process. Despite this, it just so happened that it is still with the monetary board),” he said.
Allegations of the equipment being overpriced have plagued the procurement process of the undertaking even from the beginning.
The first bidding was held in 2015, with ConEquip being declared as the winning bidder despite submitting a higher price than the others.
Gov. Hilario Davide III subsequently declared a failure of bidding, citing public interest and a need to dispel all doubts of the integrity of Capitol’s procurement process.
During the second bidding, five companies expressed interest to supply the heavy equipment, namely: Civic Merchandising Inc., ConEquip Philippines-RDAK Transport Equipmment joint venture, D Limitless Vehicle Corp., TKC Heavy Industries Corp., and JVF Commercial.
However, only two out of the five companies attended the actual bidding. These are ConEquip-RDAK, and D Limitless.
ConEquip-RDAK was eventually declared as the lowest bidder after it was able to present their bid price and to meet Capitol’s requirements while the D Limitless lacked some documentary requirements.
Rodas said they would be expecting feedback from the monetary board by next month because under the rules, the board has three months to deliberate on the application.