BY RANIE AZUE and MAE SINGUAY
BACOLOD City – Who is the contractor of the controversial animal hub project in this capital city? The provincial government wants to know.
The contractor started building the P4-million animal hub without the project satisfying the standard bidding requirement, Negros Occidental governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. earlier said.
The animal hub includes an auction area, animal pens, a training center, a laboratory for research and development, and a demonstration room.
The hub will offer lower auction service fees to animal raisers in the province, thus cutting their production costs.
Marañonhas ordered to stop the construction of the hub, which was already almost 80 percent complete, in March after the capitol’s Bids and Awards Committee informed him about the infraction.
He added that he was clueless that the animal hub was already being built at the Panaad Park and Stadium in Barangay Mansilingan.
Marañon stressed that there was “miscommunication” regarding the project’s implementation.
The construction began when Provincial Veterinarian Dr. RenanteDecena was on leave, the same time when then Panaad Park and Stadium officer-in-charge Ian de Ramos died, the governor added.
Assistant Provincial Legal Officer Atty. Mary Ann Manayun-Lamis said they are now forming a team that will investigate the construction.
The team will be composed of members from different offices and departments under the provincial government.
Manayun-Lamis said it is “indeed mysterious” that the contractor carried out the project without securing necessary documents.
She added that the animal hub project underwent a pre-bidding conference in December last year but the official submission of bidding documents was cancelled.
It was, however, not immediately clear why the official submission was called off.
Manayun-Lamis said that a Facebook photo showing Decena and his staff – captioned “Better Together, Ground Breaking of Negros First Animal Hub at Panaad Parks and Stadium Bacolod” – would be a material evidence for the investigation.
Moreover, Office of the Building Official head Isidro Sun yesterday said the contractor has not secured a building permit for the animal hub project.
Sun added that this week, his personnel will go to the project’s construction site and issue a notice of violation and a stoppage order.
The National Building Code states that “no person, firm or corporation including any agency or instrumentality of the government shall construct alter, repair, convert, use, occupy, move, demolish, and add any building or any portion thereof or cause the same to be done without first obtaining a building permit therefor from the Building Official assigned in the places where the subject building is located or to be done.”/PN
