By MAE SINGUAY
BACOLOD City — The city government here is looking for the patrol boat that it received as donation from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in December 2012.
Executive Assistant Reynaldo Ebreo said they will ask the help of the National Bureau of Investigation in looking for the boat believed to be in the hands of Councilor Carlos Jose Lopez.
But Lopez yesterday said the patrol boat was with the forwarder, who would not release the equipment because the city failed to pay for its freight.
Lopez said he forgot the name of the forwarder but believes that the patrol boat was being kept somewhere within the city.
The city government under then Mayor Evelio Leonardia (now congressman) acquired the 28-foot patrol boat from BFAR through Sen. Loren Legarda, an Audit Observation Memorandum from the Commission on Audit (COA) showed.
Addressed to Mayor Monico Puentevella, the memo said COA discovered that the P2,189,000 patrol boat was not accounted for as city government property.
COA found out about this after a review of the Report on the Physical Count of Property, Plant and Equipment of the city for 2013, said the memo dated April 16, 2014.
It said the patrol boat was not recorded in the books of the city — a violation of Section 63, Chapter 3 of Presidential Decree 1445 or the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines.
It turned out that the patrol boat was not turned over to the city government despite the existence of documents — certificate of acceptance, award and invoice receipt, among others — warranting its transfer.
“The patrol boat was not taken in the books of the city and not included in the inventory of government properties, based on the recent inventory report submitted by the General Services Office,” COA said.
A memorandum of agreement on the use of the patrol boat was signed by Leonardia and BFAR Director Asis Perez, said the state auditor.
COA recommended to Puentevella to “demand from the city official who received or assumed responsibility for the patrol boat to immediately turn over the same to the city for proper recording in the books and inclusion in the inventory report, and use the equipment for its intended purpose.”
Lopez said the Leonardia administration cannot pay for the freight at the time due to the election ban, thus, his request to the forwarder to release the boat was not granted.
He also said he had already written the present administration many times requesting it to pay for the freight, to no avail./PN
