City Council gives green light on P70M heavy equipment

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City council has given the go signal to purchase P70 million worth of heavy equipment for the engineering department and the mountain barangays.

The heavy equipment shall consist of a brand new asphalt wheel paver, brand new pneumatic tire compactor, brand new double drum vibratory asphalt compactor, two wheel-type hydraulic excavators, brand new vibratory soil compactor, brand new skid steer loader and a motor grader.

The city government is supposed to purchase P98 million worth of heavy equipment but the council deferred the purchase of some equipment worth P30 million because there are some matters to be fixed with one of the suppliers, particularly the price quotation.

This means that the two brand new payloader, brand new lowbed trailer, brand new mini backhoe and brand new vacuum and catch basic cleaner machine will have to wait.

The city council during last Wednesday’s session deferred the resolution authorizing Mayor Michael Rama to open Letters of Credit with the Land Bank of the Philippines for the amount of P98.6 million for the purchase of the heavy equipment.

The resolution was also supposed to authorize the mayor to apply for the authority to import with the Bureau of Import Services, to apply for tax exemption with the Department of Finance and to sign all necessary documents for the importation.

Although the purchase was made from local suppliers, the equipment will have to be imported. To save taxes the suppliers use the local government unit in the importation.

Councilor Roberto Cabarrubias said that it is an accepted practice because the LGU is set to gain savings since the supplier will not have to add taxes on the price of the goods.

Cabarrubias said that during the executive session last Friday, the council was already convinced that the heavy equipment are necessary to be purchased and that it has undergone proper bidding procedures as attested to by the members of the Bids and Awards Committee present during the executive session.

The budget for the purchase was included in the annual budget.

Cabarrubias said that the heavy equipment were bid out last March but was delayed even more when it was stalled in the council.

He said that given the delay, the equipment might be delivered on March next year. — (FREEMAN)