COA grants P1.02-M contractor's claim vs Ozamis City for 2016 road project
The Commission on Audit (COA) has granted the P1.02 million money claim of Presli Deles Construction (PDC) against Ozamiz City but denied the payment of interest for the concreting of Kinuman Norte-Guimad barangay road in 2016.
Presli D. Deles, proprietor of PDC, filed the petition for money claim and sought P1,360,516.55 against Ozamiz City for payment of work accomplished on the concreting project.
The concreting project was entered into by the city with PDC on Jan. 4, 2016 for the total amount of P5,377,632.96. It was one of the several Farm to Market Road (FMR) projects implemented by the Department of Agriculture (DA) with the city, with the DA covering 20 percent of the costs while 80 percent is shouldered by the city.
The project was completed on March 3, 2017, and the inspection report conducted by the city found it 100 percent completed.
However, when the Technical Services Office (TSO) Regional Office X evaluated the reasonableness of the approved budget of contract (ABC), it found that the project was overstated by P462,391.87. Another re-evaluation of the project reduced the overstatement to P249,286.72.
Deles requested the city for payment of its final billing for the project amounting to P483,962.37, with claim for retention money of P537,763.30 and interest of P338,790.88 or a total of P1,360,516.55.
The COA found Deles’ petition partly meritorious and said that PDC should be paid the correct amount of P1,021,725.67 "or without deduction for the alleged overstatement of P249,286.72."
However, COA dismissed the interest claim for lack of jurisdiction.
The six-page decision was signed by Chairperson Gamaliel A. Cordoba and Commissioners Roland Cafe Pondoc and Mario G. Lipana.