THE close to 3,000 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) will have to crowd on their existing cells a little longer.
Acting jail warden Roberto Legaspi said the construction of 19 additional cells was put on hold after the winning contractor backed out from their existing contract with the Cebu provincial government.
Legaspi said they are now negotiating with a second contractor to pursue project implementation.
The construction of 19 new cells worth P4.5 million was scheduled this year.
But Legaspi said the first contractor which he refused to name, begged off from pursuing their contract citing difficulty in jail access.
To prevent familiarity with inmates, Legaspi said they required the contractor to submit a listing of all their workers and make proper declaration if any of these workers have relatives inside the detention facility.
Construction workers were also required to submit themselves to materials inspection every time they would enter and leave the jail premise.
“It’s a jail facility. They (construction workers) should really submit themselves (for inspection),” said Legaspi.
Legaspi, who is also head of the Capitol’s Civil Security Unit (CSU), said the contractor agreed to their terms when they met earlier for a pre-construction meeting, but they started to raise complaints as the project progressed.
Just last week, the contractor formally expressed their desire to back out from the project implementation.
Legaspi said they cannot waive the implementation of their security requirements as a protocol.
CPDRC, which was built for 1,500 inmates, now accommodates around 2,800 detainees, almost double its supposed capacity.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
