Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Tom blames council for land swap delay
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday blamed the City Council for the delay of the land-swapping deal with the Provincial Government, a project that is seen to help the city’s urban poor.
Osmeña said he already wants the City to gain ownership of the Provincial Government-owned lots covered by Provincial Ordinance 93-1 but the Council has not authorized it up to this time.
He earlier proposed to swap some of the City’s properties with the Province-owned lots to keep the Capitol from taking them back from the occupants who failed to pay for the lots.
Sitting on proposal
“The Council is sitting on it (the proposal), I don’t know why but they’re just sitting on it. This is a very important consideration for the City because the occupants are our constituents,” he told a news conference yesterday.
In a separate interview, Vice Mayor Michael Rama disagreed with the mayor, saying a committee composed of all lawyers in the Council has already studied the legality of the land-swapping deal.
Councilor Edgardo Labella, one of the councilors in the committee, said they already completed their evaluation and they will submit a report to the Council on their regular session tomorrow.
Osmeña is confident that problems on housing of the urban poor sector will be addressed if the swapping of lots materializes.
Some 4,000 beneficiaries of Ordinance 93-1 are currently occupying 627,696 square meters of province-owned land in Barangays Luz, Apas, Busay, Mabolo, Lorega, Camputhaw, Lahug, Capitol Site and Kalunasan. (LCR)
(August 16, 2005 issue)
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