QC gov't terminates convention center project, other 'improvident' contracts
MANILA, Philippines — Public departments within the Quezon City local government reviewed existing city projects and recommended the cancellation of some 40 projects—including its scheduled city convention center—which were tagged as non-performing, delinquent or anomalous contracts, to prioritize more urgent projects amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In a press release sent to media, the city government said this came after the city council approved the city’s 2021 budget.
"When the Internal Audit Service was formed in 2019, its main purpose was to ensure that funds are allocated properly and efficiently, towards the best use of taxpayers,” Mayor Joy Belmonte said in a press release.
“Given the expected downturn in our city revenues due to COVID-19, the termination of these deficient contracts is the best solution to free up the necessary resources to address the effects of the pandemic,” she also said.
Among the principal projects endorsed for cancellation were the second and third phases of the Quezon City Convention Center, whose sophomore phase was scheduled for completion by Aug. 27, 2019 but whose contractor requested "repeated extensions" according to the LGU.
"Moreover, the contractor requested the QC local government for an additional P35 million to cover for the 'cost of delays and other circumstances'," the city's statement read. "Upon inspection of the site by the City Engineering Department last month (more than 400 days past the initial contract deadline), the project was found to have been less than 75% completed, with negative slippage reported as 25.85%."
Phase 3 of the project saw much of the same inertia, with the city reporting that its completion status remains at "zero percent" despite being expected to finish before December 1, 2019.
“Apart from the questionable terms of these projects and the massive delays in their execution, the pandemic has pushed so many other initiatives ahead of the Convention Center,” City Attorney Niño Casimiro said of the project after his office recommended the termination of its contract.
“It does not make fiscal or practical sense to continue funding a long-overdue structure that cannot be used anytime in the near future, and will most likely end up becoming a huge white elephant,” he added.
The city added that its P28.7 billion fiscal spending plan for the year allotted "almost half of the entire budget" to social welfare, salaries for frontliners, and other healthcare services.
In a separate release issued that same day, Quezon City disclosed that it had entered into a deal with British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca to secure doses of its coronavirus vaccine, following the lead of other local government units in Metro Manila.
Quezon City, the most populous city in the country, has had 39,491 COVID-19 cases, according to the Department of Health. Of the figure, only 1,537 are active cases.
As of the health department's latest case bulletin issued Wednesday afternoon, a total of 480,737 coronavirus cases have been documented in the Philippines since the pathogen first emerged in December of last year.
— Franco Luna with a report from Gaea Katreena Cabico
Disclosure: Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte is a shareholder of Philstar Global Corp., which operates digital news outlet Philstar.com.
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