Lims penchant to overprice gov’t transactions – Dagupan Mayor

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – The mayor and the vice mayor here traded barbs when the former charges that the latter and his father, the former mayor, have the propensity to overprice government supplies and projects.

What got the goat of Mayor Belen T. Fernandez was after Vice Mayor Brian Lim spoke lengthily on a radio interview that the construction of the new city hall will cost the coffer by P2 billion loans.

FATHER & SON – Dagupan City Former Mayor 

Benjie Lim and son Vice Mayor Brian Lim.

Lim had been telling the public that the new government building cost P500 million, P1.2 billion, P1.5 billion, and lately P2 billion that the people of this City will pay the crippling amortization.

Although it has already the omnibus term loan draft resolution, the legislative body has not started to deliberate how much loan this City will borrow from a bank.

“P2 billion. Ito ang sasabihin ko pa, siya ang magtatayo ng building. Siya ang estimate. Sanay sila sa overprice. Naalaala ninyo ang noodles Dep Ed? Magkano ang noodles noon? Six pesos! Siguro mas mura matagal na iyan five pesos, ang benta nila almost twenty pesos. Masyadong mataas sasabihin nila two billion pesos sanay kasi sila sa mahal overpricing pati gamot,” Fernandez rebuked the younger Lim in a press conference after Mayor Lim was criticized on the controversial purchased using public funds.

It can be recalled that in the 2011's budget hearing in the Sangguniang Panlungsod then Councilor Chito Samson exposed that a kilo of sugar and those of Milo, milk, Lucky Me Noodles were overpriced by the Lim Administration.

He cited that the sugar was P25 more than the market price of P135 while the noodle was at P15.23 when its real price was P6.90 apiece.

Fernandez said when she assumed office in 2013 she discovered that the father of Vice Mayor Lim contracted with a supplier of medicine where one of the items cost P100 when it was only priced at P20.

“Naalaala ko noong umupo akong mayor pini-presyo ang gamot na biente naging isang daan kaya pag nag estimate sila (Vice Mayor Lim) ganoon kalaki, nakasanayan nila e,” she cited.

During the administration of Mayor Lim he was charged with various corruption issues.

The elder Lim was assailed with anomaly when he represented this city 2001 in buying a 30-hectare hilly areas in Barangay Awai, San Jacinto, Pangasinan for P16 million.

The purpose was to make it as dump site as this city faced garbage’s crisis.

Critics said his business partner Jose Mariano – Cuna bought that property for P7 million but to the disadvantaged of the taxpayers of this city as the land was part of the government land reform program.

The five-star Mc Adore International Palace was sold by then Mayor Lim and Councilors that included then Councilor Brian Lim to  AmbALC Holdings and Management Corporation, Inc. for P119 million when its market price in 2010 was P400 million.

The ownership of the Palace is being litigated in the Supreme Court.

When Lim was president of the Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, he sold a donated road by the Lioanag family to the Filipino- Chinese in violation of the Donation Law to a bus company that deprived the Filipino-Chinese community passage to their cemetery.

Mayor Fernandez said the older Lim was accused of other anomalous transactions that she would cite later in an Artikulo 1 to Artikulo 100's expose'.