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[av_heading heading=’Bacolod billed P29M for waste’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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BACOLOD City – Its contracted garbage collector billed the city government a total of P29.1 million for two months, but the latter will pay less.
Penalties for uncollected waste will be deducted, according to Department of Public Services head Nelson Sedillo.
IPM Construction and Development Corp. has charged city hall P14.3 million for the period Sept. 2 to 30 and P14.8 million for Oct. 1 to 31.
Sedillo said they received the billing only recently.
City hall hired the IPM for a four-month (Sept. 2 to Dec. 31) “environmental sanitary service” under a P59.4-million contract, or an average monthly billing of P14.85 million.
The contractor has incurred penalties during the billing months: P45,500 for September and P15,500 for October.
Earlier, Sedillo recommended imposing a fine on the IPM.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia, who also heads the Solid Waste Management Board, said the IPM shall be penalized if it fails to act on reported uncollected garbage within 24 hours.
After a day, it will be charged P500. If it still does not act, it will be charged another P1,000, and so on, the mayor explained.
IPM senior vice president Jan Vicente Mercado has acknowledged that penalties were included in their contract’s terms of reference.
Mercado said they were willing to face the corresponding sanctions for their contract violations. That they were fined was just a case of “check and balance,” he said.
“It may be harsh to hear that we somehow failed to meet the standards in addressing the city’s garbage problem, we are also making steps to improve our service,” Mercado said.
Sedillo said the IPM was “getting better”; the city government seldom receives complaints regarding uncollected waste now compared to the previous months.
And Leonardia considers extending the IPM’s contract to another month if city hall cannot hold a bidding soon pending the Sangguniang Panlungsod’s approval of the P2-billion proposed annual budget for 2017./PN
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