SP can't probe P400M flyover project, says Mabilog
The Sangguniang Panlungsod has no jurisdiction to probe the alleged anomaly over the construction of the P400 million Infante vehicular flyover.
This was the reaction of Vice Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog on reports that Atty. Edeljulio Romero and two other lawyers are asking the City Council to conduct an investigation on the unfinished flyover project.
Though the council has yet to receive a formal request from the lawyers, Mabilog said "they are barking at the wrong tree."
Mabilog said the city government has nothing to do with the construction of the flyover as it was funded by the national government under the President's Bridge Program.
He said, as far as he is concerned, the city government has no participation on the conceptualization and construction of the project since it was the result of the study made by a team from the national government to address the city's traffic problems.
The regional office of Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has taken over the completion of the P400 million Infante vehicular project after all the contracts signed between the contractor Mabey & Johnson Ltd, a United Kingdom-based construction firm, and the government was suspended.
Reportedly, Mabey & Johnson's contracts all over the country was suspended after the contractor failed to follow the project specifications of the bridges as stipulated in the contract.
In Iloilo City, among the discrepancies noted in the project construction are those in piers 2, 3, 4 and 5. The contractor likewise has remaining works to do like the embankment, approaches, concreting of abutment and part of the retaining wall in approaches.
DPWH said the piers have to be upgraded and reinforced.
Nevertheless, Director Emil Sadain of Project Management Office (PMO) of the DPWH central office already assured that the vehicular flyover will be operational before 2007 ends, said Mabilog.
The national government has already allotted an additional fund of P10.8 million to complete the project.