Tom O. to raise funds for CIPC

WITH the Cebu City government withholding the P5.4 million assistance to the Cebu Investment Promotions Center (CIPC), former south district congressman Tomas Osmeña is looking for ways to raise funds to let the CIPC continue to operate.

Financial deprivation by the Cebu City government is slowly subverting the CIPC, Osmeña said yesterday.

He said he was talking with some individuals to raise funds including Reps. Raul del Mar (Cebu City north district) and Rodrigo Abellanosa (Cebu City south district) to tap their help in identifying fund sources for the CIPC, which is the marketing arm of the South Road Properties (SRP).

“The others will help.  We will try to find a way (to raise funds for CIPC).  The two congressman are also willing to help,” Osmeña said.

Mayor Michael Rama said in an earlier interview that he will only allow the release of the city’s 2013 assistance to CIPC amounting to P5.4 million after the private group is able to resolve its “internal conflict” which he believes is the reason for the resignation of four members of its board of trustees.

INTERNAL CONFLICT

“What Mike Rama is saying is that there is an internal conflict.  That is not an internal conflict. Mike Rama is the problem here,” Osmeña said.

He said that the non-release of the CIPC assistance is because of Rama’s dislike for board member Joel Mari Yu, whom Rama suspects to be a BO-PK (Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan) loyalist.

He said that Rama only had to refuse the release of the CIPC assistance so that the group will not have money to pay for their operations and the salaries of its personnel among others. /Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac