The rush to approve a resolution seeking to legitimize an unauthorized and irregular transaction of the Dagupan City mayor involving the lease of a commercial area fronting the city plaza was initially blunted.   

      Instead of approving the draft resolution forwarded by City Administrator Rafael Baraan, seeking to give authority to Mayor Benjamin Lim to enter into a contract with a private company that will build a commercial complex under the build-operate transfer (BOT) scheme on a city government lot fronting the city hall, the city council decided to refer it to the committee on laws and ordinances.

      In a special session last week, the PUNCH reported that the city council was asked by the office Mayor Benjamin Lim to pass the resolution after the contract was already reportedly awarded to Metrostate Realty Corporation headed by Architect Mark Joseph Siapno.

     Councilor Farah Decano on Monday’s regular session, filed the motion to refer the issue to the committee a week after council members clashed over the issue which Councilor Alex de Venecia vehemently opposed and questioned.
 

      Consequently, Councilor Teofilo Guadiz III, chair of the committee on laws and ordinances, asked the city mayor’s office to submit all documents to the city council pertaining to the supposed bidding that was conducted, including documents attesting to the capacity of the winning bidder and the two other bidders who were disqualified. 

     He also sought copies of the publications wherein the bidding notice was published, the date of the bidding itself as well as the incorporation papers of the winning bidder indicating the names of the company’s incorporators.

     He said his committee will determine, among others, if proper procedures were followed and the contract entered into by the mayor is advantageous to the city.  The committee is set to meet on Tuesday.

      Councilor de Venecia, meanwhile, clarified during the session that he is not against the project but is only concerned whether proper procedures were followed to avoid the possibility of any citizen of Dagupan filing a case against city officials before the office of the Ombudsman.

     He, too, asked for all the pre-bidding documents, bidding documents, including plans for the supposed projects to be scrutinized by the city council and also to find out if the procedures specified under the BOT law were observed.

      Metrostate will reportedly pay the city P1 million a year as stipulated in the contract.

     Baraan, vice chairman of the Pre-qualification Bids and Awards Committee (PBAC), said the former occupant of the property, Bugnay Development Corporation was paying the city only more than P200,000 a year for the use of the property. 

     In a talk over a local radio station, Baraan said the resolution being sought will ratify the contract entered into by the mayor, saying that there was already a resolution of the body giving authority Lim to find investors that will build the project since the city government has stopped borrowing money from the bank in order to build the same.

     Baraan, who expressed confidence that the resolution will eventually be approved by the city council, said the project, which will be a smaller version of the posh Glorietta mall in Makati, will be a big boon to Dagupan since it is designed to boost tourism.

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