Ouano: Mayor handling projects badly
HIS PROJECTS for Mandaue City were “carefully planned,” but the present administration is handling them badly, said former mayor Thadeo Ouano.
Ouano yesterday criticized City Hall reports that said his administration wasted P619 million in taxpayers money on unfinished projects.
“The projects have long been cooked but until now these are still on the cooking table,” Ouano said in a statement to Cebu Daily News.
He said the report from City Hall was exaggerated.
He cited the new Mandaue City Public Market, which accounted for around P416 million of the P619.23 million in unfinished projects reported by the City Engineer’s Office.
Ouano said the project was not unfinished but was “85 percent complete” and still proceeding.
Because the market project was still ongoing, the number of suspended projects should only be P202.35 million and not P619.23 million, Ouano said.
Other projects started in his administration were proceeding until Mayor Jonas Cortes stopped them, said Ouano.
He said this showed Cortes’ “incompetence” in handling projects.
Of the 16 projects cited in the report, only three were completed by the Cortes administration so far. These are road projects costing P1.65 million.
The report said the projects were halted due to reasons unresolved by the previous administration, such as road right of way and unavailability of materials.
Ouano said it was Cortes who was wasting funds because funding for these projects were made available during his administration, but were not released by Cortes.