Cagayan de Oro (CDO) City Mayor Oscar Moreno has been charged with nine more counts of graft cases in the Sandiganbayan over various anomalous deals for the lease of heavy equipment when he was the governor of Misamis Oriental.
Ombudsman prosecutors accused Moreno of causing undue injury to the government by awarding rental contracts totaling P3.55 million despite irregularities from 2007 to 2012.
In September 2007, Moreno allegedly awarded a two-year contract to Equiprent Corp. for the lease of a 20-ton excavator, despite the company’s failure to submit the necessary requirements during the bidding.
The Ombudsman also questioned the award of a P2.35-million contract to rent a vibratory roller from Earth Tools Development Corp. in 2008 despite no bidding.
Equiprent was also awarded four contracts totaling P2.69 million for the rent of an Isuzu elf fuel tanker. Moreno was also accused of graft over the rent of a D155 Komatsu bulldozer in March and April 2012 for P58,800. —Vince F. Nonato