What to do with the CICC

It’s probably high time for the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) to be turned over to the Mandaue city government if the finance report of the Capitol’s Treasurer’s Office is anything to go by.

Initial information from the Provincial Treasurer’s Office showed that the province had spent millions for the upkeep of the CICC, including a P12-million electric power bill accumulated since 2009.

That doesn’t include the water bills spent for the center, the monthly maintenance fee paid to a private firm even if the building is used only for special events that are held every few months, and repairs and landscaping costs which can run into more millions of pesos.

The CICC is a joint venture with the Mandaue city government but Mayor Jonas Cortes said his city hasn’t earned a single centavo from the deal even if the center sits on prime property in the Mandaue Reclamation Area.

It’s not that the Mandaue city government has no other option. Cortes said they have other sites to consider in building their new City Hall.

He also mentioned that the city government doesn’t want to be involved in the corruption complaint filed by businessman Cris Saavedra, who insists the project, which was rushed by Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia in time for the 2007 ASEAN Summit, was overpriced and built on terms that unduly favored the contractor.

What was supposed to cost under P500 milllion to build ballooned to nearly a billion pesos.

That doesn’t include the contractor’s bill for additional works.

Rep. Tomas Osmeña of Cebu City’s south district, Garcia’s arch critic, has a point when he said the CICC’s presence is unnecessarily competing with other convention facilities in cities of Cebu and Mandaue.

(In fact, one major hotel had already named its facility Cebu International Convention Center, but didn’t make a squeak of protest when the Capitol proudly inaugurated it’s own center with that name.)

This is an enterprise best left to the private sector to run.

A hard-nosed evaluation has to be made about the CICC’s cost to profit ratio and its viability, whether it’s a revenue source tilted in favor of the province and its expenses don’t burn through the Capitol’s pockets.

Rep. Pablo John Garcia is right in pointing out that the decision will have to be wait for the next governor who is elected in May.

Whoever gets elected should decide with dispatch how best to deal with the CICC since it’s taxpayers who continue to foot the bill.