KAGAYANon.net, Cagayan de Oro City Forum

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City Hall mulls market takeover

CAGAYAN de Oro City Mayor Constantino G. Jaraula is contemplating on taking over the operations of the Cogon Public Market and Commercial Complex within this month, the City Hall information department reported.

The move set in motion the mayor's plan to buy back the Cogon market, which is under a 25-year Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) contract. The three-storey market was built in 2005.

Under the controversial P252 million BOT contract, the city government is given the control of the wet market section provided that it would share to 80 percent of its collection to UKC Builders, Inc., the contractor.

The sharing provision is just one of the several grounds pointed out by a number of disgruntled vendors when they asked the court to void the BOT contract in 2005. Corruption cases were likewise filed against officials of the previous administration before the Ombudsman the following year.

According to the City Information Office (CIO), the planned takeover became imminent with the "impressive collection of the Cogon Market for the first three months this year."

In her quarterly accomplishment report to the mayor, acting City Economic Enterprise Manager (CEED) Nena Salon disclosed that the 1st quarter collections from the Cogon market reached 19,387,362.97, the CIO reported.

Jaraula's buy-back plan includes the Carmen Commercial Complex, another BOT project under the previous administration.

The City Council has earlier given the mayor an authority to negotiate with the BOT proponent, the UKC Builders, for the purchase of the two markets.

It wasn't clear how much the two markets would be sold for, but earlier reports put the amount to P500 million-covering the construction cost of the two markets and the projected profits of the private contractor, as provided in the BOT contracts.