MANILA, Philippines — The San Juan City government on Tuesday said it is currently launching an investigation into the alleged waste of government funds by some erring city government officials.
San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora disclosed that the city had purchased a “spider excavator backhoe” worth P40 million that was never used.
He explained that the backhoe was bought to clean rivers and creeks but was later found that it could not fit into the waterways.
“Hindi kasya sa daluyan ng tubig kaya hindi nagamit. Nabili nila supposedly para maglinis ng creek sa San Juan ngunit hindi ito makababa sa creek at ilog,” Zamora told reporters after his 100-day speech at the San Juan City Hall on Tuesday.
[The backhoe cannot fit the waterways which was why it was not used. It was bought to be used for cleaning creeks at San Juan.]
Zamora also noted that they discovered falsified receipts from the San Juan Medical Center wherein a big amount of cash has not been returned to government funds.
Zamora also recently found out that “may mga empleyado tayo gumagamit ng sasakyan ng gobyerno upang kumita ng personal sa paghakot ng gamit sa isang restaurant (there are employees who are using government cars to earn by hauling equipment of a restaurant).”
Zamora said they will collect pieces of evidence to hold accountable those behind the alleged corruption in the city government.
“Ang ginagawa natin ngayon nagcase build-up tayo, gumagawa ng ebidensya meron tayo para sa tamang panahon ay managot ang dapat managot [What we are doing right now is a case build-up to dig up the evidence that we have so that they may be held accountable,” he went on to say during his speech where he also discussed the local government’s integrity program.
Zamora, however, refused to identify the names behind the allegations as the case is still under probe.
He also noted that San Juan City’s legal department will investigate the anomalies while the Commission on Audit (COA) will also be allowed to probe the reports of corruption.
“Isang daang araw pa lang, hindi lang dito makikita ang anomalya [We only started for 100 days, but reported anomalies will not end here]. We will allow COA to audit everything,” Zamora said.
‘Questionable collections’
Zamora said they also found “questionable collections” of the previous administration on the rental of the San Juan Gym.
The previous administration collected only P193,700 rental fee for the gym which is lower than the present administration’s P833,000, he said.
Zamora also said that the local government collected P200,500 in 2016 and P513,500 in 2017 from the gym’s rent.
The San Juan mayor, however, noted that under his term, the local government collected P659,000 worth of rental fee in just three months.
“Sa loob ng tatlong buwan, umabot sa P659,000. Tapos ang collection ng isang buwan lang mula nitong Hulyo ay higit pa sa collection pa nung buong taon ng 2018. Kahina-hinala ang collection ng nakaraang administration,” he said.
[In three months, we collected P659,000. And then the collection just for a month since July was more than the collection for the entire 2018. The collection of the previous administration is questionable.) /kga