Makati contractor tagged in ‘questionable’ CHED project

MANILA, Philippines - The contractor of the allegedly overpriced Makati parking building figured in a multimillion-peso Commission on Higher Education (CHED) call center project that the Commission on Audit (COA) stopped back in 2009 due to irregularities, a lawmaker said yesterday.

Rep. Terry Ridon of party-list group Kabataan made the revelation after getting hold of a copy of the COA report.

Quoting the report, Ridon said Hilmarc’s Construction Corp. was part of the e-SGS consortium, which clinched the contract for the CHED call center project in a highly controversial bidding in 2007.

He said the other consortium members were E-Services Global Solutions, Inc. (ESGS), Drishti Philippines, Inc. (DPI); and Information Transmission Computer Control, Inc. (ITCC).

“It appears that Hilmarc’s Construction has already been involved in issues of overpricing in past government projects,” he said.

He explained that the CHED call center project involved building facilities and procuring technologies for incubation hubs in six state schools – Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Technological University of the Philippines, Laguna State Polytechnic College, Tarlac State University, Pangasinan State University, and Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University.

He added that in 2007, an internal CHED inquiry revealed that the contract with eSGS did not undergo proper bidding procedure and the civil works component of the project was overpriced.

“According to the CHED investigation, the P40,646 per square meter cost of construction of the call center building in PUP that was to serve as the ‘command center’ for the project was overpriced, since government agency estimates for similar single-floor buildings with medium-quality finish pegged the cost at only P20,000 per square meter,” Ridon said.

He said in 2008, the COA released a special audit report which found that eSGS, the contractor, “will be paid P87.3 million without clear deliverables.”

From 2009 to 2010, COA issued several notices disallowing payments for the call center project, he said.

“And in 2009, the contract with eSGS consortium was pre-terminated due to the irregularities, and the subsequent implementation of the project was passed on to the six (schools) concerned,” he said.

Ridon also said the Makati building contractor has cornered several government construction projects.

These include the Bacolod and Calamba city halls, Iloilo provincial capitol, the Sandiganbayan building, the Batasan south wing, Quezon City General Hospital, Makati Central Police District office, and a Makati City-owned swimming pool, he said.

He urged the Senate to look not only into the allegedly overpriced Makati parking building project of Hilmarc’s but into their other government projects as well.