Tomas says CA order on P6M market payment is ‘enough’

THE P6.4 million ruled by the Court of Appeals as the payment balance for initial works on the Carbon Market unit II is a “good enough” amount, said former Cebu City mayor and now Rep. Tomas Osmeña of Cebu City’s south district.

Osmeña called on his successor Mayor Michael Rama to pay the amount which is much lower than the P50.7 million claimed by the Young Builders Corp. “The P6 million to me is great. That’s a victory. It’s not a loss (for the city),” he said.

Osmeña recalled that Young Builders billed the city P80 million for the pile foundation of unit II when he was still city mayor.

But he questioned the computation of the amount due to inadequate documents.

“I just got the billing with no proper documents for the foundation works. There is no way of measuring how deep was the pile made unless you pull it out,” he said.

Still Osmeña said the city agreed to a P24.5 million payment to the project contractor who later went to court to claim the P50.7 million balance of their claims.

Rama for his part said he is still waiting for a copy of the CA decision which he wanted the city legal office to study it.

This early, the mayor would not yet say if he will authorize payment of the P6.4 million claims.

He also blamed the poor handling of the case by the Osmeña administration which resulted to the city’s loss in the money claims.

“Why will Mike say it’s from the previous administration? He was (part of the) previous administration….. He (Rama) is so thick-faced to say it’s from the previous administration,” Osmeña said.

Osmeña said it was Rama who opposed payment for several money claims against the city government which included the Rallos lot case that resulted in an increase in the amount owed to the claimant.

“Now we have a lien on P4 billion worth of properties (at the SRP because of the still unpaid Rallos lot claims),” he said.

To end the case, Osmeña said the city should already pay the P6.4 million ordered by the court.

He said the appropriation could be included in the city’s supplemental budget 2 as part of its statutory obligation. Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac