Mayor vows: It’s P250-M or bust for new City Hall

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

THE Iloilo City government will not go over the P250-million budget set for the additional amenities of the new City Hall.

Mayor Jed Patrick E. Mabilog said over Serbisyo Publiko hosted by Councilor Perla Zulueta that they cannot exceed the budget as it will burden the city government’s coffers.

Mabilog said Engr. Conrado Goco of Pacific Orient Management (POMC) was the one who made the estimates for the additional amenities which stood at P348 million.

“I already slashed some items but POMC’s estimates was still at P348 million. So I made more deletions to keep it within our budget,” he said.

Mabilog said among the deleted items is an alley which will connect the City council to the Office of the Mayor which will cost P2.5 million.

“I told the consultant that we don’t want to be criticized for spending P2.5 million for an alley alone,” the mayor said.

Mabilog also slashed the proposed P7-million landscaping project on the City Hall’s rooftop.

“We can do that landscape for less than P7 million so I deleted it from the budget. I am still sticking to the P250-million budget,” Mabilog said.

Councilor Zulueta said she observed that POMC’s estimates for the basic structure or “shell” of the City Hall was way above the winning bid.

“Engr. Goco’s estimates for the shell was P455 million but how much was the winning bid? It’s P368 million, a difference of P87 million. From that point you can ask if the computations are correct,” Zulueta said.

The city government will be forced to spend at least P200 million more after it was found out that winning bidder FF Cruz Construction is building only the basic structure sans the amenities to make it functional.

The target completion of the new City Hall is August 2011 at the latest although the structure is seen to be finished February 2011.