THE FOLLOWING IS ATTRIBUTED TO CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY MAYOR ROLANDO UY’S PUBLIC RELATIONS TEAM:
RECORDS at the City Hall would show that former Mayor Oscar S. Moreno himself drew massive cash advances during his term.
This makes hypocritical and malicious the claims of the camp of the former to impute wrongdoing in the practice of cash advances at the local government unit.
These cash advances fit the pattern of how Moreno mismanaged City Hall’s finances.
“Gihurot, giwaldas gyud ang kwarta sa syudad,” said Moreno’s former communications consultant BenCy Ellorin.
“We have so far unearthed over half-billion in cash advances to himself,” Ellorin added, referring to the former mayor.
In December 2021, Moreno made 14 cash advances amounting to P171,556,000; In December 31, 2020, Moreno drew seven cash advances amounting to 125,500,000; and in December 2019, Moreno made 12 cash advances totaling P289,700,000.
That is a whooping P586,756,000 in just three of Moreno’s nine years term.
“On its face, it would seem that Moreno made drastic withdrawals of City Hall funds at the end of the year,” added Ellorin, noting the pattern on how Moreno mismanaged city hall finances.
Moreno left the City Hall on June 30, 2022 with only P103 million left in the city’s coffers, and P2.7 billion unpaid suppliers and contractors.
The COA in 2022 observed that Moreno left at least 126 unfinished projects amounting to P1.05 billion.
On the other hand, Kauban Ta Uy says that the so called “expose” of former city administrator Teddy Sabuga-a was unfair to employees of the local bureaucracy who were just doing their jobs.
The practice of drawing cash advances for certain City Hall expenditures is normal. So why make a fuss about it?
“Perhaps, it is out of frustration of the Moreno camp. But they should have spared the non-political employees in the issue,” said Ellorin, reiterating that Moreno himself drawing huge cash advances is the one that should raise questions.
