By EUGENE ADIONG
BACOLOD City — A city hall official here believes Councilor Carlos Jose Lopez should be investigated for allegedly failing to turn over city government properties.
Rogelio Ebreo, executive assistant to the mayor, said he will ask the National Bureau of Investigation to look into Lopez’s suspected hoarding of a patrol boat and trailer and a truck, both city hall-owned.
This was despite Lopez’s promise to facilitate the turnover of the patrol boat this week.
Ebreo, also the Bacolod Traffic Authority Office chief, challenged the councilor to produce the P2.2-million boat.
The city government acquired the boat as donation from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in December 2012. The Commission on Audit, however, had discovered that the boat was not accounted for as city hall property.
Lopez, who solicited for the donation, is now believed to be keeping the boat.
He had explained that the boat is still with the forwarder (supplier) because the city government has not yet paid for its freight worth some P400,000.
Still, Ebreo insisted that the councilor “should have turned it over to the city in 2012” and that it “should not be considered his (Lopez) private property.”
He said the 28-foot patrol boat, which includes a trailer, was bought by BFAR using the Priority Development Assistance Fund of Sen. Loren Legarda. He did not elaborate on the truck.
Jerome Solinap, the city’s general services officer, said they do not have records of the properties Lopez allegedly keeps.
Solinap said city government properties should be kept by the city government and not by any individual, even a public official./PN
