MAYOR Mauricio Domogan asked the Baguio City Council to approve the Terms of Reference (TOR) to pave way for the conversion of some 8,200 government lights into energy saving Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights.
The mayor met with members of the council committee on laws and the technical committee Wednesday afternoon to discuss the TOR for the LED lighting system of the city.
Domogan, in his weekly Ugnayan presser, said the meeting aimed to find the best provider of LED lights in terms of quality, price and maintenance of the lights.
He said the provider to be chosen through a public bidding after publication of requirements will convert over a period of 12 months existing street lights and lighting systems in City Government offices, public market, public schools, police, jail and fire stations into LED.
The winning contractor will also maintain the street lights for 12 years.
Both councilors and the technical committee agreed to follow international standards on the quality of the LED lights.
Foreign companies wanting to enter into a contract with the city will also be allowed to join the bidding together with interested Filipino companies.
"We will not disqualify the foreign company if they will give the best offer for the LED lighting program," Domogan said.
The mayor said they also tasked the technical committee to re-compute if 10 or 12 burning hours for the street lights are more advantageous for the city.
"Whatever the technical committee computes as more advantageous will be included in the terms of reference," he said.
The mayor said he hopes the City Council will already schedule the TOR for discussion on October 8 so there will be no further delays in the implementation of the project.
Once the TOR is approved by the council, the mayor said they will publish these terms for interested investors to join the public bidding.
The city is expected to gain savings from the project as the lights provider would no longer charge maintenance costs and city government through the City Engineer's Office to maintain the LED streetlights.
The city has been seriously pursuing a private investor to maintain and manage street lights as the CEO lacks manpower to repair non-functioning street lights.
In the TOR, the LED lights provider will recoup their investments in the 12-year project from the shares in savings from the conversion to LED in the annual P66 million allotments for street lighting.
The city is also expected to save some 50 percent in expenses from the current compact fluorescent and incandescent bulbs with the planned conversion to LED bulbs which are expected to last some 50,000 burning hours.
The LED light service provider shall undertake replacement of all lights 10 to 12 months upon the confirmation of their contract with the City Government.
The city will advertise the TOR to prospective bidders in accordance with the Build Operate and Transfer Law and the Special Bids and Awards Committee headed by City Administrator Carlos Canilao and City Budget Officer Clemente, with the assistance of the technical committee who will undertake evaluation and review of the proposals.
Other salient provisions of the TOR include random sampling of the LED lights to gauge illumination and watt consumption, maintenance, repair and replacement of defective LED lights and monitoring and supervision assignment to the CEO and City Building and Architecture Office.
To ensure faithful performance of the project, the service provider is also required to post a five-percent cash bond of the project cost. The cash bond may be substituted by other performance of security provided under the Procurement Act after the completion of the scopes of undertaking.
After the expiration of the memorandum of agreement in 12 years, the City Government has the option to renew their contract with the LED service provider.
