SRP road clearing project pushed

CEBU City councilors are pushing for the resumption of the P50 million South Road Properties-Bus Rapid Transit (SRP-BRT) route clearing and embankment project, pending the completion of a fact-finding investigation by the Office of the Visayas Ombudsman on the validity of awarding the project contract in the absence of council approval.

The road project has to be finished before the September 2015 opening of the SM Seaside Mall, said Councilor Nestor Archival.

“We need to help them (SM) as we promised when we had the contract (to sell the SRP lot to mall management),” Archival said during the council’s June 11 session.

SM mall management is proposing a bus system that will traverse the SRP to ferry their passengers and workers to and from their new mall.

Archival said that the proposed SRP-BRT route would cater to the mobility needs especially of SM and Filinvest Land Inc. (FLI), two of the city’s biggest investors at the SRP.

OIC city engineer Jose Marie Poblete, who is also head of the bids and awards committee, said that work suspension order on the road project is still in effect.

Engineer Bernabe Gilbor of Supreme ABF Construction sought the work suspension order on April 2013, a month after his company was awarded the project contract following questions raised by the city council on the validity of the contract which was awarded to him in the absence of their concurrence.

Councilors also filed a complaint before the Ombudsman which prompted the conduct of a fact-finding inquiry on the matter.

The Office of the Ombudsman has already summoned all the respondents including Mayor Michael Rana and Gilbor asking them to comment on the complaint against them.

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