PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte warned private companies to complete their projects within 30 days or face cancellation as he lambasted private contractors for building poor quality infrastructure government projects.
The President, who had just arrived from an India summit, described that bidding anomalies had resulted in inferior quality jobs.
He said the current bidding process in government where the lowest bidder usually gets the project was very disadvantageous because it affected the quality of the jobs.
The President wants all projects in the Philippines to be bidded out through Swiss challenge.
Swiss challenge is a public procurement process wherein the government that has received an unsolicited bid for a project invites other parties to match or exceed it.
“I want buildings, highways, railroads built. I will show you open space for everybody. And if you do it correctly, I will pay you in 15 days in accordance with what was required by government,” Duterte said.
“I am tired of the slow pace and the inferior quality of jobs in government projects. I give you 30 days, or I will give it to another contractor. Either your contract is canceled or somebody else will undertake it,” Duterte said.
The Department of Public Works and Highways is the major agency that implements, oversees and handles major infrastructure projects in the country.
Duterte also said the policy of lowest bid was dragging the government to corruption.
He disclosed that syndicates abound and were just waiting for invitations to bid from the government and participating in the process with ridiculously low bids that had excluded more competent and honest contractors.
“There are at least four or five firms pretending to be contractors [but] were actually in cahoots with each other as they try to drive down the bid to keep the legitimate contractors from winning,” he said.
Duterte gave assurances that under the new setup in bidding process, contractors would be paid within 15 days after completion of the project.