Beja’s office padlocked

By LITO RULONA
Correspondent .

DISMISSED Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD) general manager Rachel Beja has been barred from entering her office — it has been padlocked.

Beja said she first received information on Saturday that her successor Engr. Bienvenido Batar has ordered her office padlocked. She said she checked in the afternoon and saw it padlocked.

Batar confirmed to this paper yesterday: “Yes, it was padlocked.”

Engr. Beja has brought her case to the Civil Service Commission and until it decides on it, she said she would continue reporting for work. Yesterday, she stayed at one corner of COWD administrative office on Corrales Ave..

Days before her office was padlocked, Beja said she received a notice from Batar for her to vacate the office.

Beja said she defied Batar’s order. “Wala ko mi-vacate sa akong opisina tungod kay duna man kita’y stand.”

What followed was the office’s disconnection from the Internet and CCTV lines, she said.

“Gihulatan ko na kung i-apil ang kuryente,” said Beja, adding that she brought the matter to the attention of her lawyer.

Beja said Batar has also ordered the COWD’s finance office to drop her from the payroll.

“Wala na ako’y suweldo nga gidawat. Wala lang ako kahibalo kung duna ba gyu’y instruction ang board or written order,” she said.

She maintained that she would only leave if the CSC rules on her case.

Meanwhile, the COWD chairman on Sunday maintained that the utility’s board had the power to boot Beja out in accordance with procedures established by the CSC.

COWD chairman Eduardo Montalvan said this even as he spoke about “a conflict going on” between the COWD board and members of the city council in a statement posted on the Mindanao Current blog which he maintains.

Some councilors like Teodulfo Lao Jr. and Enrico Salcedo have called for the resignation of the COWD directors over their decision to remove Engr. Beja as general manager for “loss and trust and confidence.”

The two councilors, along with Councilor Reuben Daba, have filed a complaint against the COWD for its 2017 joint venture agreement with Metro Pacific Water Investments Corp. to form a new firm that would supply treated water to the utility. The councilors said the reason for Beja’s dismissal was because she consulted that Office of the General Corporate Counsel (OGCC) about the then proposed agreement.

Montalvan said, “The BOD is the policy making body of the company and it has the power to appoint and/or remove the general manager and the management team in accordance with procedures established by the Civil Service Commission.”

He also maintained that the COWD followed procedures on joint venture agreements as prescribed by the National Economic Development Authority, and that negotiations between the water district and Metro Pacific were handled by a joint venture selection committee composed of members from the COWD management team in the presence of representatives from the OGCC and from the Local Water Utilities Administration (Lwua).

Montalvan said the joint venture agreement was subjected to a Swiss Challenge and any interested party was free to challenge the offer of Metro Pacific.

“There were a few companies that expressed their interest but in the end, nobody challenged the offer. The OGCC then made a final review of the contract and, in the end, the contract was checked by both sides and signed in the presence of Lwua officials and OGCC personnel,” he said.

He said councilors have no authority to call for the cancellation of the COWD-Metro Pacific contract “nor (do) they have any authority to investigate the matter.”

The counclors, he said, questioned the details of the contract and demanded that it be cancelled. “After that, they then asked for a copy of the contract. In short, they were objecting to something they have not even read,” Montalvan said.

He said the Metro Pacific offer came at a time when the COWD was looking for alternative suppliers of treated water becauseof the then impending termination of the contract between the utility and Rio Verde Water Consortium Inc..

Rio Verde had been COWD’s lone bulk water supplier since the mid 2000s.

Montalvan said, “The contract was awarded to Rio Verde but this was questioned and disapproved by the Commission on Audit because it was fraught with anomalies and the proper procedures were not followed. COA then asked COWD to have the contract nullified and voided by courts. This went on for years.”

He said Rio Verde claimed it started to lose because it could not raise its rates, and neither could COWD get water from other sources while the nullification case was ongoing, resulting in a compromise agreement and the termination of their decade-old contract. (with reports from herbie gomez)