CH consultant uncovers some 'anomalies' inside OBO

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s consultant on revenue protection has claimed that some “irregularities” inside the Office of the Building Official have deprived the city government of supposed income of an undetermined amount from the processing of building permits.

In an accomplishment report that he submitted to the mayor, Frederick T. Rivera said there are applications for building permits approved by the OBO despite the lack of the required documents. He however failed to cite a specific case to substantiate his claim.

Sought for reaction, OBO chief Josefa Ylanan quickly denied Rivera’s claim and challenged him to cite specific cases in which the applicants for building permits had been granted with such permits despite their failure to comply with the requirements because they gave grease money to her personnel.

Rivera was hired by the city as one of its dozens of consultants and was assigned to the OBO to address the reported revenue losses in that office.

On the course of his evaluation, Rivera claimed to have uncovered some “questionable activities” that needs to be addressed immediately.

Rivera observed that it will take from one to two months for the applicants of building permits to secure the document from the OBO and that they have to go to the different sections to have their applications processed.

He said that it is in the architectural, civil, line and grade sections where the time-consuming process occurred as compared to the other sections of OBO. The deficiencies noted during the evaluation of the design plans and specifications of the project are the reasons of the delay in the processing of the permits, he added.

Ylanan admitted that the applicants for permits are the ones who process their applications with the respective sections because whenever the inspectors found out some deficiencies, the documents would be returned to them for compliance of the requirements.

Rivera claimed that it is in the deficiencies of the design plans and specifications that corruption occurred.  — Rene U. Borromeo/WAB