Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has ordered the investigation on the use of middlemen in government transactions entered into by the previous administration of Cebu City mayor Michael Rama.
Osmeña’s action came after the city’s disbursements in relation to the Supplementary Feeding Program (SFP) was under close scrutiny by the Commission on Audit (COA) after it was found out that many of the purchases that were supposed to be made from legitimate suppliers were instead made from middlemen.
“Some P18 million goes to a mysterious supplier in Mandaue who cannot even be found. And the products are not going anywhere,” he said.
Osmeña said that he will have the matter investigated, considering that it involves public funds.
In the COA report, state auditors discovered that the Cebu City government bought P12.9 million worth of supplies for the Department of Social Welfare and Services from a general merchandise store, which apparently was not a legitimate supplier and only got its supplies from other suppliers.
“I just want to show that this is one very clear case of graft. (P12) million pesos from one supplier, who is not even a supplier and just a middleman. And we don’t know who got the supplies and where it was delivered” Osmeña said.
He said that he wants to know where are the food on the feeding program, who gets them and what daycare.
He also said that in the COA report, some daycare centers in the city did not conduct any feeding programs.
Osmeña also said that he would file a case against employees who approved the transaction involving the middlemen for the SFP.
He said that the findings of COA are certainly evidence of graft and corruption.
He said he would still have to consider if he would continue the SFP program.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
