Thursday, March 22, 2007 Ombud wraps up probe on lamps, dared to suspend Ted, others
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña challenged the anti-graft office to suspend Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano while the investigation on the alleged overpricing of the streetlamps is ongoing, but Ouano said politics is behind the plunder case filed against him.
Ouano said yesterday he is planning to file libel charges against businessman Crisologo Saa-vedra, who filed the complaint at the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
The anti-graft office’s fact-finding investigation on the Asean summit lampposts and streetlights is over.
Acting Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Santiago said they will release their investigation results by the end of the week.
The findings are deemed confidential until released but a source inside the fact-finding panel said they limited their findings to whether there was overpricing in the multi-million-peso purchase and whether local, regional and national public officials colluded in making it so.
Saavedra said he is confident the ombudsman is one step closer to holding accountable those responsible for the anomaly.
Saavedra and party-list group Bayan Muna filed the complaint that led to the anti-graft fact-finding investigation and the parallel probe being done by the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission.
Cake
But Mayor Ouano, quoting a reliable source, alleged that Saavedra’s documents were prepared in the residence of Cebu City Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem.
“No way. I only met Cris once when he went to my office here to talk about the lampposts he planned to sell to us for the SRP (South Road Properties),” Jakosalem said in an interview.
He said Saavedra used his fax machine to send some documents to Sun.Star Cebu.
“That was the time he went to my office to discuss my plan to set up a fingerprint identification system for the Cebu City police and the security camera system to supplement our Mars system,” Jakosalem said.
In a separate interview, Ouano said that when a budget was available for the implementation of projects in relation to the Asean summit last January, the Mandaue City Government requested for “a slice of the cake.”
He said this was also done by the Lapu-Lapu City and Cebu City Governments.
Program
Ouano said that Mayor Osmeña requested for funds for the security of the three host cities and a budget for the international media.
Not all the projects requested were granted and that all the funds were released through the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), he said.
uano also pointed that the program of works and estimates that Mandaue submitted to the DPWH didn’t bear any corrections.
“We have no control over the money,” he said, adding that the National Government handled the bidding and release of funds.
He added that his daughter-in-law, Cheryl Ouano, is also not involved in the fund release.
“Kinsa man na siyang motu-is didto (Who is she to apply pressure)?” the mayor said.
Ouano will soon give his explanation in full-page advertisements.
He reiterated an earlier statement that he is willing to have the controversial lamps removed if there is proof of corruption.
Double
And not only does he want to hit Osmeña’s head with one of the lampposts, Ouano also wants to smack Saavedra’s head with it.
Saavedra, during a news forum that Acting Deputy Ombudsman Santiago also attended, revealed that a DPWH official tried to bribe him into recanting his allegations.
He said somebody representing one of the suppliers offered him P100,000 just to stop pursing the case.
In his news conference yesterday, Osmeña accused the anti-graft office of having double standards when handling investigations.
In 2005, he said, the ombudsman suspended Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) board officials for six months when they refused to release the salary and benefits of a former employee.
“Kini P120 million naa pay grabeng overpricing and what’s their excuse? That it’s still fact-finding? What other facts do you need when very clearly there’s overpricing?” Osmeña said.
Gap
He further said that Ouano should produce the program of works and estimates (POWE) and other documents that will speed up the investigation on the matter.
The ombudsman finding is expected to determine just how much the government spent in the purchase and how much the items bought and installed are actually worth.
It is expected to explain the gap between the value of the purchased lampposts and streetlamps, based on importation papers from China, and the price the government paid to the suppliers, Gampik Construction and Development Inc. and Fabmik Construction and Equipment Co., according to the supply contract between them and the DPWH.
The importation documents states, for example, that the three streetlamp models specified in a POWE prepared by the Mandaue City Government, bought from Fabmik and put up in Mandaue could be had for as low as P3,626, minus installation.
The single arm models, according to the documents, are only worth $36 or P1,746 while the double and triple-arm models only cost $41 and $74 each or P2,009 and P3,626, respectively.
Simple
According to the contract signed between Fabmik’s Isabelo Braza and DPWH Assistant Directors Gloria Dindin and Pureza Fernandez, the three models are worth P314,698, P325,916.69 and P350,090.48 each, respectively.
The ones that cost P85,000 in Cebu City and P95,000 in Lapu-Lapu City, meanwhile, only cost 224RMB (Chinese yuan renminbi) each or P1,411, minus the cost installation at the foreign exchange rate of P6.30 for 1RMB.
Santiago, interviewed yesterday, said they limited the probe on the absence or existence of overpricing and collusion to keep things simple.
She did not discount the possibility of another probe on other aspects of the controversy—the installation of lampposts on a private lot and the use of police officers for security in a private property.
Investigations similar to the one involving the lampposts end in the issuance of a final evaluation report, which will recommend either the termination of the probe or the upgrading into a formal criminal and administrative investigation.
If the recommendation is for a formal investigation, the anti-graft office can issue a preventive suspension order on the public officials concerned to ensure that they don’t use their official functions in any way to impede the probe.
Preventive suspension orders can last up to six months. (LCR/AAG/KNR)
