Fortuna blames Cortes’ relatives for state of M'daue’s roads
By Dale G. Israel
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 08:26:00 09/05/2008
MANDAUE City Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna yesterday blamed delays on road repair and maintenance on the presence of Mayor Jonas Cortes’ relatives working at City Hall.
Fortuna said it is these relatives who have not been able to implement the city’s road projects lined up in the city’s Annual Investment Plans (AIP) and 2008 annual budget, which was why the City Council disapproved allocations for more road projects in the mayor’s proposed Supplemental Budget No. 1 (SB 1).
“If he should blame someone, he should blame his Kabanay Unlimited for the lack of road maintenance,” Fortuna said. “They are the (reason) why he can’t implement his projects because they are fighting among themselves on whose favored supplier will win (the contract).”
Fortuna did not identify any relatives, however.
Last Tuesday, the mayor lashed out at the City Council for removing allocations for road repair and maintenance in SB 1, saying the public should blame the councilors for the city’s bad roads.
Fortuna, presiding officer of the City Council, reiterated the council’s stand that there is a total of P187 million that the mayor can use for road repair and maintenance.
At least P122 million is still available from the AIP of the previous administration, P59.4 million from the 2008 AIP, and P6 million from the 2008 annual budget, Fortuna said.
The mayor earlier said that the funds for road maintenance and repair in the AIP and 2008 annual budget have already been set aside for specific projects and could not be diverted to other projects.
The road repair allocations in the original draft of SB 1 that were removed in the slashed SB 1 approved by the council were meant for roads that have not yet been allocated repair funds, Cortes said.
City Administrator Briccio Joseph Boholst described Fortuna’s statements about interfering relatives as “baseless and irresponsible.”
“He knows that it is not true. Pataka ra na siya (He’s just making things up),” Boholst said.
Meanwhile, Cortes announced that his administration was able to cut down fuel expenses last year due to reforms he implemented.
He said that when he took over as mayor in July until December in 2007, the city spent P10.59 million for fuel, down by almost half compared to the P19.15 million spent on fuel from January to June in 2007, which was still in the administration of former mayor Thadeo Ouano.
Cortes credited the savings to stricter processes in allocating fuel and preventing fuel siphoning incidents.
Although the city bought more vehicles and fuel prices went up, Cortes said the city government was able to cut down on fuel expenses even further. Mandaue spent P10.39 million on fuel for January to June this year.
According to Cristituto Tiro, fuel inspector of the city motorpool, the city maintains 211 vehicles, which get fuel allocations from City Hall. These include motorcycles, cars, and heavy equipment.
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