maybe there's some truth to the saying: "when it rains.. it pours", and such is what's happening to the Ouano family in Mandaue.
...and I can't wait 'til we get into the bottom of this... *drum roll please*
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Ombudsman to probe Mandaue market project
By Suzzane Salva-Alueta
Cebu Daily News
Last updated 06:10am (Mla time) 03/31/2007
ON the heels of the lampposts scam investigation, Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano and other city officials may find themselves in further trouble.
Yesterday, the Visayas Ombudsman scheduled a fact-finding inquiry on the long under-construction, multi-million-peso Mandaue Public Market.
The action was based on a Cebu Daily News report on Mandaue City loans and a photo of the unfinished market that was published yesterday.
“We will check the veracity of the report,” said Acting Ombudsman Director Virginia Palanca-Santiago.
She ordered for a copy of the news article to be kept by her office.
The Mandaue City government had spent P93 million – acquired through a loan, a grant from the national government and the city’s own funds – to make the market’s foundations or first phase.
A photograph of the unfinished market that accompanied yesterday’s story was taken on July 2006. According to CDN reporter Dale G. Israel, nothing has changed at the construction site to this date.
Jonjie Gonzales, Ouano’s media consultant, yesterday said the mayor or his personnel would contact CDN if the mayor had an official statement on the issue. CDN received no calls from the mayor yesterday.
An additional P18 million, also acquired through a loan, had been allocated by the Mandaue City government for completion of the planning and design, pre-implementation and construction of the market.
Recently, the Mandaue City government ratified a loan of P379 million to finish “phase 2” of the market, comprised of the market's upper structures.
So far, the city has allocated P490 million for the project.
The market is the second city project under the administration of Ouano that was subjected to a fact-finding inquiry by the Ombudsman.
In July 2006, the Ombudsman Visayas started an inquiry into the city's purchase of garbage bins.
Of the 5,800 garbage bins that the city purchased at over $100 each, over 100 bins remain unused.
The unused bins are stored in stacks at an unfinished warehouse in the Mandaue City Reclamation Area.
The Ombudsman’s investigation into the bins was prompted by a CDN story printed in the same month.
Engineer Rene Tariman, head of Mandaue City’s Department of Government Services, earlier explained that the unused bins were still to be distributed to the city’s different barangays.
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ei, gardener et al... ARE WE HAVING FUN YET