The Iloilo City Government through Jeffrey Celiz, liaison officer for political affairs of City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog admitted that the new Iloilo City Hall building which is expected to be completed by end of May, had undergone so many revisions.

Celiz, however, clarified that the P450-million-worth Phase 1 of the said project, underwent progressive billing and pre-audit from the City Accounting Office, City Treasurer's Office and City Commission on Audit (COA).

"On the claim by the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB) that there should be appropriate cost adjustments to the P450 million approved budget for the contract (ABC), and reduce the amount, for the seven-story City Hall building project when it removed or deleted major scopes of work, yes, cost adjustment might be lower or higher. But in case of the new City Hall building, it was higher because of so many added revisions," he said.

Celiz cited that on the Phase 1 project, additional elevators and change of tiles, among others were not included in the contracted budget.

"If we are doing anomalous transactions with this project, why is it that until now, we have not received a notice of cancellation of payment or notice of disallowances from the COA?" said Celiz.

Apart from the said budget, the city government also added P260 million for the Phase 2 project which includes removable items.

Earlier, an e-mail from the Legal Department of the GPPB dated May 3, 2012 the agency tasked to formulate and implement policies pertaining to government procurement activities said there is no express prohibition for the "procuring entity" --- Iloilo City government in this case --- to change the specifications prior to the conduct of a public bidding.

However, as major scopes of work were removed or deleted from the project specifications just before the public bidding was held, "it follows that the ABC for the project should also be modified" to reflect the cost of the scopes of work that were removed.*(with reports from Cassy Jimeno)