Lawyers disassociate about problems with tranvia

The lawyers in charge of counseling for signing contracts tram in the previous municipal administration defended his leadership of the process and ensured that they left documents ready for the project ends in February this year, "penniless overpricing".

Alvaro Mendez and Francisco Donoso, legal advisers of the recruitment process, requested that the Municipality detail "the real reasons for the delay of the work and the increase of 35 million dollars" in the budget of the tram.

Also ask for transparency in the process, because as they say, documents concerning the progress of the project have not been uploaded to the Public Procurement Portal since February 2014, "which prevents know in detail how this has been developed".

Contracts

Contracts for the work, said Mayor Marcelo Cabrera last week, are not "fixed price, but open to the possibility of additional items".

However, according to Mendez, the contracts were signed under a clause that contractors renounced price adjustment.

This clause has exceptions as the extension of time, additional works, no delay attributable to the contractor, creating new items or signing additional contracts.

Donoso said that additional works that expensive contracts, "so it can not be claimed to blame the previous administration for additional amounts of work."

The audit also worries the municipal former officials. Donoso said the contract management oversight and Tram Project, signed by more than 8.2 million with the French company Artelia, fulfills its contractual term next month so it must be signed an additional contract whose cost is not yet defined .

Transparency

Donoso and Mendez argue that the documents relating to payment of payroll, work progress, among others should be made public through the shopping portal for citizens to learn about the causes of delays and increased costs tram.

This has not been done, says Mendez, "pretext of a confidentiality clause that has been misunderstood" by the Municipality.

Mendez said that clause applies only to intellectual property issues, "and in those areas where there is common agreement", so the municipality have the authority to make that information public, he said.

The lawyers also ask regard to daily fines of $ 7,213 to be paid by contractors for delays clarification, according to a report of the Comptroller of the tram.

In its reports the Comptroller also requires the delivery of unit prices where the contract was based on the previous administration. Donoso Mendez and ensure that they already complied with this recommendation. (JPM) (I)

Response of the Municipality

This newspaper sought an interview on the subject with the procurator of the Municipality, Fernando Ramirez, but the official agenda items, according to us the Communications Department of the Municipality, it did not materialize.

From this same department he indicated that Ramirez addressed the issue through a local radio interview in which he said that there are inconsistencies in the contract and asked that these be reviewed by the General Comptroller of the State.

During the interview in question, the Municipal Trustee indicated that the tram contracts are extensions of "hundred days" that in response to concerns Mendez and Donoso on the expiration of the contract for the audit of the project.

As for the additional financing, he said that estimates not exceeding 35 million. Technological change tram and elements of technical order are presented as a cause of rising project by the official. To cover this item has been requested assistance from the national government. (I)