P26.8M for city’s garbage to be released sans bidding

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Department of Public Services (DPS) clarified they resorted to emergency procurement for the disbursement of the P26.8 million fund for the hauling operation this month because they would already need the amount by Thursday.

DPS Assistant Head John Paul Gelasque explained that they were inclined to do the emergency procurement, and not through public bidding, because the amount would already be needed to continue the garbage collection in the city.

If the disbursement is done through public bidding, it will paralyze the hauling operation because such procedure will take 28 days before the Bids and Awards Committee can declare the winning bidder.

In an emergency procurement, the canvassing period will only take one week.

“Later nami kahibaw nga naay PAGCOR budget. Lately lang mi nakabalo apil sa guidelinessa PAGCOR. Si Mayor Tomas Osmeña, as much as possible, he wants everything to be bidded out kay ganahan siya wala’y maestorya. Everything is transparent, everything goes through the normal process of bidding,” he said.

It was noted that the annual budget of DPS amounting to P121 million has been used up. In fact, for the month of June, they realigned P40 million of their budget for the rental of heavy equipment to garbage collection due to budget constraints.

This year, the city government spent P161.7 million for the garbage collection, excluding the P26.8 million from PAGCOR funds.

This will be the third time that the executive department did an emergency procurement for contracting service provider to haul the city’s generated trash.

The first was when the controversial Inayawan landfill was shut down last December, where the city government resorted to emergency procurement of the P9.2 million budget to continue with the garbage collection.

The second was in January this year with P25.5 million was needed, and this month’s emergency procurement would be the third.

Gelasque said they did not have enough budget for the hauling operation for the entire year because they failed to anticipate that the Court of Appeals will issue a closure order on the landfill.

“Ang budget hearing November (last year), wala mi mag-expect nga ma-closed ang landfill sa gi-file nga Writ of Kalikasan. Wa mi nag-expect ana, na-close siya, wala nami tagai ug chance nga ma-amend ang budget proposal,” he said.

The department’s approved annual budget was P121 million for the garbage collection and P50 million for the rental of heavy equipment.

Gelasque made a clarification to the emergency mode of procurement after he heard that the Barug Team Rama camp has been criticizing this move.

In a separate interview, Councilor Joel Garganera, who formerly heads the city council’s committee on environment, questioned why DPS keep on having such mode of procurement.

“Preferably unta, we follow the procedure, just a small sense of foresight ba and urgency. We can’t just keep on relying on emergency procurements because it might result to abuse. The council and the concerned citizens won’t be able to peruse the necessary documents. Transparency and accountability must be observed unta gihapon,” he told The FREEMAN.

Meanwhile, BAC head Ronaldo Malacora divulged that they can already declare the winning service provider for this month by tomorrow.

At least two service providers joined the canvassing – the Jomara Konstruckt Incorporated and Pasajero Motors Corporation. (FREEMAN)