BAGUIO CITY—Local residents are up in arms against the alleged substandard implementation of numerous infrastructure projects by concerned government agencies and the local government here.
The concern was raised by the motoring and commuting public after they observed that the contractors that implemented multi-million worth of projects were not actually equipped and do not have the technical and financial capability to implement the projects that they were able to secure through pre-arranged bidding.
The concerned residents questioned the Department of Public Works and Highways and the local government for allowing public works contractors to continuously use job mix in their respective project sites amid the existence of Administrative Order No. 116, series of 2013 issued by Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan that prohibited contractors from using job mix for the aggregates of their projects.
According to the complaint, the contractors contribute to the worsening traffic congestion and the deteriorating air quality of the city because they even go to the extent of occupying portions of busy roads to mix their aggregates and that the dust particles produced also contribute to pollution in the city’s air.
The pro-environment advocates stressed that the DPWH and the concerned offices of the local government must strictly implement the provisions of AO No. 116, series of 2013 to prevent contractors from committing errors in the mixture of their aggregates that will result to the completion of defective infrastructure projects.
The local residents challenged the CoA to facilitate the conduct of coring tests in all completed national and local infrastructure projects to ascertain whether or not they will be able to pass the standards imposed for the projects and for the concerned materials engineers and members of the quality assurance units to check whether or not contractors complied with the prescribed construction standards.
It was also recommended that samples to be taken from the projects must be duly signed by concerned inspectors to avoid the switching of samples which is the common practice of contractors to be able to make it appear that their projects are within standards when in fact, there are obvious defects in their completed works.
The local residents expressed their concern why newly implemented projects, particularly the concrete pavements, suffer from unnecessary cracks and scouring several months after completion when there were projects that were implemented more than two decades ago that are still not affected by the various weather disturbances that had visited the city.
They also pointed out that the current batch of contractors have obviously been cheating the government by failing to adhere to existing standards in project implementation, thus, the need for COA to intervene to protect the interest of the people in such projects and to penalize erring contractors.