NBI, COA, OMBUDSMAN ASKED TO ASSIST

THE Blue Ribbon Committee of the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) will continue its hearing on a proposed resolution seeking to authorize the City Legal Office to file criminal cases before the Ombudsman against contractors of the past city administration whose projects were substandard, abandoned, undelivered, or considered ghost projects.

In its next scheduled hearing on August 27, the committee headed by Councilor Jose Netu Tamayo asked City Secretary Ryan Ravanzo to invite representatives of the National Bureau of Investigation, Commission on Audit, and the Ombudsman to attend and contribute to crafting a reasonable resolution for the purpose.

City Legal Officer Aurora  Valle, City Engineer Josephine Corpuz, and other department heads have also been asked to again attend the deliberation.

Tamayo said that in the first committee hearing in mid-July, he gave all contractors of the past Lim administration 30 days to revisit their projects and undertake the necessary corrections.

Not one contractor obliged, he said, which prompts another hearing.

During the flag-raising ceremony on August 18,  Mayor Belen Fernandez also asked the SP Blue Ribbon Committee to reopen its investigation against the defaulting contractors who, she said, cannot just run away from their uncompleted or undelivered projects after being paid.

Noting that one of the defaulting contractors said the city government can no longer run after him because his company is already bankrupt, Fernandez said:  “This is unacceptable as the money of the people was involved here.”

Among the projects in question are:

• Two undelivered wooden motorboats, both worth less than P1 million;
• Used motorboats that were made to appear brand new, which most barangay chairmen refused to accept;
• Unfinished construction of the Malimgas Public Market;
• Construction of Zamora Street and other streets, which had been observed to  be affected by high degrees of scaling weeks after their completion;
• Substandard CCTV cameras, with at least 75% not functioning;
• Overpriced computer tablets; and
• Construction of a flood gate and pumping station costing millions that were never used.

(Leonardo Micua) 

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