Cebu City ‘not short on cash’, Rama assures

“We are not short of cash,” said Cebu City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas in a press conference yesterday.

The newly appointed treasurer said she was ready to explain the city’s financial status to the Cebu City Council.

Cuevas and other City Hall officials led by Mayor Michael Rama yesterday answered point by point the criticisms raised by former Rep. Tomas Osmeña who put out a full-page newspaper ad two weeks ago that appeared to show that city finances were mismanaged based on observations of the Commission on Audit in its annual report. (See table summarizing their comments.)

Osmeña said he ran the ad “in the spirit of transparency.”

Mayor Rama said that while several lapses were noted by COA, it was misleading to say City Hall was overspending or implied that he was engaged in irregularities.

“Did the mayor take money? No. Write that in the newspapers. The COA didn’t even commend me for the projects I’ve done,” Rama said.

The mayor said he decided to wait before calling the press conference because Cuevas was appointed acting treasurer of Cebu City on August 8 by Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.

“The advertisement has caused apprehensions among the people and raised questions. There is a need to explain,” City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete said.

Poblete said city officials gave their explanations to COA on the audit findings after an exit conference last July.

“The explanations were just deepened during the press conference because some of the write-ups that came out didn’t have our explanations. They just cited the COA report,” Poblete said.

He said the released COA report had some of their statements but were not included in reports published in the local dailies. Correspondent Jose Santino S. Bunachita