‘Hold off rebidding’
Proposed Cebu City Medical Center
How do we pay for a new hospital?
And what happened to the failed bidding for the new Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC)?
With these questions still in the air, the Cebu City Council yesterday asked to hold in abeyance the rebidding of the CCMC for a P300 million foundation which Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama now wants to be bidded out for an expanded P600 million project.
In a privilege speech, Councilor Eugenio Gabuya Jr. who belongs to the opposition bloc, said he’s worried about how the city intends to rebid the project for a bigger scope when revenue collections are not rosy.
“Nabalaka ko kay (I am worried because) the P600 million is not available at this point since the P300 million last year was spent to pay for the senior citizens and barangay officials incentives and other payables. The other P300 million this year has yet to be collected. So we need to raise P600 million, unya wala pa tay kwarta (and we still don’t have money),” he said.
The public hospital was demolished after being condemned as an unsafe structure following the October 2013 earthquake. A plan for a P1 billion medical complex is being pursued in stages while hospital services continue on a smaller scale in a temporary setup in the old fire department building across the street.
The Council is looking for answers for another unexplained change after Mayor Rama last week revamped the bids and award committee (BAC) for infrastructure.
The BAC composition no longer includes Councilor Mary Ann delos Santos and the former chairman, city engineer Jose Marie Poblete, who were among those who voted 3-2 to post-disqualify the lowest bidder WTG Construction and Development Corp. with its joint venture Manila partner A.M. Oreta and Co. Inc.
Their P275 million bid was declared “unresponsive” with several discrepancies in their bid documents.
“When the BAC recommended to disqualify the bidder, the mayor concurred. That’s why Poblete proceeded with the next lowest bidder. All of a sudden, a failure of bidding was declared. What was the reason? Did the second and third lowest bidder also submit false information? The council should know,” Gabuya said in his speech.
Gabuya warned that he would take steps to blacklist contractors who falsified documents from joining the bidding in any of the city’s future projects.
The council set an executive session on Thursday next week to find out what happened.
Cebu City Vice Mayor Edgar Labella huddles with Councilor Eugenio Gabuya and Councilor Mary Ann Delos Santos during a recess in this file photo in Oct. 22 last year. Gabuya yesterday said moves to rebid the CCMC project need a closer look.
(CDN PHOTO/LITO)
They invited members of the the old CCMC BAC headed by City Engineer Poblete and City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas to shed light on the bidding process and the status of funds for the project.
They also directed the BAC Secretariat to submit all documents leading to the disqualification of the lowest bidder, the evaluation report of the next lowest bidder and the documents that led to the declaration of the failure of bidding.
The P300 million budget for Phase 1 of the hospital construction was passed in a supplemental budget. Another P300 million was included in Cebu City’s annual budget of P13.4 billion approved for this year.
City Treasurer Cuevas told the council last year P300 million was withdrawn from the city’s time deposit account to fund the last tranche of P3,000 cash assistance for senior citizens last December and incentives for barangay officials as the city’s collection fell short of last year’s P5.8 billion annual budget.
She said using the money was allowed by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) since it would be replenished with new collections.
The bidding for CCMC’s Phase 1 was embroiled in controversy last year when the BAC decided to disqualify the lowest bidder for allegedly falsifying information in its bid documents in late November.
Councilor delos Santos, who represented the mayor’s office in the BAC as the requisitioner , was vocal about sticking to guidelines of the BAC and the Government Procurement Reform Act of 2002.
The BAC voted 3-2 to to post-disqualify the joint-venture of WTG Construction and A.M. Oreta and Company.
Mayor Rama was irked by what he called a “premature announcement” by delos Santos but initially concurred.
When the contractor filed a motion for reconsideration with the mayor, protesting that delos Santos was not qualified to sit in the BAC, Rama dropped a bombshell weeks later and declared a failure of bidding.
At the time, the BAC was already post-qualifying the second lowest bidder.
Yesterday, Councilor Sisinio Andales moved to ask the new BAC for Infrastructure to hold in abeyance any rebidding of the project until after the counci’s executive session.
The new BAC for Infrastructure was announced by Mayor Rama last week.
He instructed them to prepare documents for the rebidding of the hospital project, this time with a bigger budget – to include the P300 million in the annual budget and even the pledges of private donors and foreign groups.
FLASHBACK. Here’s how the Cebu City Medical Center looked before it was closed and demolished following the October 2013 earthquake that seriously damaged it. A bigger, more modern facility is supposed to replace it at a cost of more than P1 billion.
(CDN FILE PHOTO)
The new BAC for Infrastructure is headed by City Attorney Jerone Castillo with Engr. Joel Reston as its vice chairman.
The members are city planning and development officer Engr. Kenneth Carmelita Enriquez, city administrator Lucelle Mercado, the mayor’s chief of staff Dominic Dino and city budget officer Marietta Gumia.
Poblete and city health officer Dr. Daisy Villa were removed.
They were among those who voted to disqualify and junk the motion for reconsideration of the lowest bidder together with Delos Santos and city assessor Ferdinand Canete.
Canete was reassigned as a member of the BAC Secretariat with no voting power.
Lawyer Jose Daluz III was transferred to head the BAC’s Technical Working Group. Delos Santos is not in the picture either.
Mayor Rama said he is still reviewing the composition of the CCMC ad hoc committee headed by De los Santos.
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