‘SEVERE FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT’
    EdPam to inherit major problems

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    ANGELES CITY – After donating recently 27 brand new vehicles of the city government to barangays and private sector beneficiaries, outgoing Mayor Francis Nepomuceno was reported to have gone on vacation to Macau as a P14-million debt prompted a local power company to cut off electricity at city hall on Friday.

    “This is one for the books. Heads will have to roll at city hall,” an angry incoming mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, a formerly Pres. Arroyo’s adviser on external affairs, told Punto Central Luzon.

    Pamintuan vowed to file the necessary charges against city hall officials and employees who allegedly conspired with Nepomuceno’s recent in illegal deals and transactions.

    Personnel from the treasurer’s office, the accounting office and others who acted as virtual accomplices would be fired and charged accordingly, he said.

    Pamintuan said he was surprised by the power cut off as he recalled that upon learning about the Nepomuceno administration’s arrears with the Angeles Electric Company (AEC), he had arranged for talks with the firm’s officials on debt as when he assumed post next month. AEC is owned by the family of Nepomuceno.

    No one from the mayor’s office was available yesterday, as most city hall employees went home as a result of the power outage.

    Pamintuan’s efforts to hold transition talks with the camp of Nepomuceno have failed.

    “The city treasurer has continued to ignore my request for data on the financial state of the city government. But my rough estimate is that the city has deficit of as much as P500 million,” he lamented.

    Nepomuceno and his administrator Mark Sison is facing graft and corruption charges before the Ombudsman filed last March by reelected Vice Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting and three other allies of Pamintuan in the city council. The case stemmed from the city government’s purchase of a five-hectare land here at the cost of P93.8 million amid estimates it only costs P12 million.

    The land was supposedly for a sports complex for which Nepomuceno also obtained a bank loan of some P812.6 million.

    After he lost to Pamintuan in the last elections, Nepomuceno, with the backing of a resolution passed by his allies in the city council, donated 27 brand new vehicles of the city government to barangay leaders and officials of non-government organizations.

    “Donation of brand new government vehicles is against the rules and regulations of the Commission on Audit,” Pamintuan said.

    “I think it’s not a question of crippling my incoming administration because the city government is already crippled. It’s a case now of severe financial mismanagement. The city government is in terrible shape,” he said.

    Pamintuan said Nepomuceno’s priorities seemed amiss, as he cited the plan for a huge sports complex amid the inability of his administration to pay electric bills and settle another P63 million arrears with a landfill facility that has already refused to process the city’s garbage.


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