Legal office checks city lease contracts

MANDAUE CITY

THE MANDAUE City Legal Office is conducting a review of all city-owned properties which have been put on lease.

According to Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna, the review of all lease transactions entered into by the city government will determine if there are any more questionable contracts and properties to be recovered.

Because of the ongoing investigation of all the city-owned properties, Fortuna said they have discovered the questionable lot sale of 35,821 square meter foreshore land in Barangay Looc sold to E.C. Ouano Development and Management Corporation (Ecodemcor) in 2015.

The sale of the land was believed to be anomalous as it was priced only at P1, 791,050 or P50 per square meter during the administration of former mayor and now sixth district Rep. Jonas Cortes.

The Mandaue City Council recently approved the recommendation of the city’s legal office to nullify the contract and recover the lot.

Fortuna said they will move to recover all city-owned properties whose contracts may be found questionable.

Recently, Katumanan Hardware Inc., another tenant of the city was questioned for having entered into an unauthorized lease contract for a 14, 408 square meter city-owned property at the North Reclamation Area (NRA) in 2007.

Katuman reportedly assigned its contract to Cenore Corporation without the approval of the Mandaue City Council.

Fortuna is now seeking the advice of the city legal office whether to terminate the contract and recover the property.

Cenore Corporation, he said, can lease the property but the contract has to be directly between the company and the city government of Mandaue.

“That is a prime property of the city. Atoa lang gyod gisiguro nga (We just want to ensure) our assets are managed well,” said Fortuna.

The vice mayor explained that the city needed more space especially since it planned to build new government offices and housing projects.