Codilla yet to clear name on fuel allocation mess

Bureau of Fire Protection regional director Eleuterio Iturriaga said yesterday that until now Cebu City fire marshal Esmael Codilla has not yet submitted the complete liquidation of the city fire department’s fuel expenses since 2005.

Iturriaga said during their meeting last week Codilla only submitted the photocopies of the fuel expenses the city fire department incurred in January and February this year amounting to 1,102 liters. There is also no voucher or change of invoice copy.

The regional fire chief said that the 1,102 liters included the consumption of the fire trucks owned by the city government.

Worse, Iturriaga said that on January 2, the city fire recorded in its logbook that a fire truck could not run because of a mechanical problem but on January 3, it was logged in the logbook that the same fire truck was fueled with 83 liters.

But in a separate interview, Codilla clarified that the fueling of the fire truck came before it had problems. He explained that they fueled the fire truck when it responded to a fire in Talamban but his men were only able to log it later.

"Human pagresponde mao na to pagguba. Wa na-log daan kay emergency man. Kinahanglan gyud gamiton dayon mao naulahi pagbutang sa logbook nga nagpatubil," Codilla said.

The city fire marshal also said he submitted the photocopy of the receipts of the city fire department’s fuel expenses but if they are not acceptable he said that he is willing to submit the original documents.

"Kung i-disallow sa region (liquidation of expenses), mohangyo ta sa local government," Codilla said.

Codilla said that the city fire department has more than 30 fire trucks, 16 of these are from the national government while the rest are owned by the city.

With these things happening, Iturriaga said that he is convinced that there is mismanagement in the city fire department.

The BFP regional office withheld the fuel allocation of city fire department due to its failure to liquidate its fuel expenses for 2005 and 2006 amounting to P433,000. He said they cannot release the fuel allocation because the unliquidated fuel expenses might be charged to the present fund. If this happens, Iturriaga said Codilla might be charged for technical malversation.

But Iturriaga said that there is no investigation yet because until now he is still waiting for the city fire marshal to liquidate the fuel expenses.

Iturriaga said that he keeps on reminding Codilla to submit the necessary documents is and helping him to come up with documents like receipts of their fuel expenses so these can be paid and their fuel allocation will be released. — Wenna A. Berondo/BRP