CITY COUNCIL TO DISCUSS HIRING OF CONSULTANTS

Andales moves to ask mayor’s office to submit hiring documents

The Cebu City Council wants to start deliberating on the approval of the hiring and renewal of the services of the consultants of all the city councilors after more than a year of delay.

During the Nov. 27 regular session of the City Council, Councilor Sisinio Andales moved to request the Office of the Vice Mayor to forward all documents related to the hiring and renewal of consultants of all the city councilors to the legislative body to allow its members to discuss it.

This came after Andales moved to authorize Mayor Tomas Osmeña to enter and sign the contact of services of Loubert Noel Tan, as consultant for the Mayor’s Management Team and Mayor’s Special Projects from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2018.

Andales said the endorsement of the hiring and renewal of consultants has been pending before the Office of the Vice Mayor for a long time.

He said the matter is already unfair to the consultants since Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella has not acted on it.

But opposition councilors, including Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera, objected to the matter, saying the approval will violate their House Rules on contracts.

Councilor Raymond Garcia, for his part, said they don’t even know the status of the consultants because of the absence of the resolution from the bids and awards committee (BAC).

The approval of the consultants of the mayor, Councilor Joel Garganera said, is also unfair to them, considering that the contract of their consultants were not approved by the mayor.

In a separate interview, Garganera said the mayor has been treating them unfairly for disapproving the consultancy services of their consultants.

Garganera said it has been almost two years that he has no consultant after Osmeña denied his request for the approval of contract of service of his consultant.

“They’re clamoring for fairness when in truth and in fact it is the mayor who treats us very unfairly,” he said. “We had an agreement that for fairness and equality, all consultants will be endorsed simultaneously because other councilors like myself did not reach first base because the mayor denied it within his level, which is a requisite before it will be processed,” he added.

As practiced, the mayor will have to give first his approval on the hiring of a consultant before it will be forwarded to the BAC.

Once the BAC approves it, it will go to Labella for endorsement being the head of the City Council before the legislative body will approve it./

They’re clamoring for fairness when in truth and in fact it is the mayor who treats us very unfairly.

COUNCILOR JOEL GARGANERA

On the plitics of hiring consultants