By CESAR JOLITO III

Bacolod City Mayor Greg Gasataya has ordered the clearing of temporary storage facilities at the City Agriculture Office compound in Barangay Alijis as part of preparations for a citywide inventory of government supplies.

Personnel from the City Environment and Natural Resources Office have been deployed to remove debris and clear overgrown vegetation from the compound, which has long been used as a stockpile site for materials of various city departments, the Bacolod City Communications Office said on Wednesday, September 10.

Gasataya said the cleanup is a first step toward ensuring accountability in the use of public resources.

“This facility was used as a stockpile of construction materials, and its current state reflects clear neglect of public resources,” Gasataya said in a statement.

“As we ordered an inventory of materials, this clearing operation is a necessary step to ensure greater accuracy and transparency in the process,” he added.

The move comes days after the mayor inspected the City Engineer’s Office (CEO) warehouses, where he discovered around 4,800 bags of hardened cement at the Bacolod City College compound in Barangay Taculing and another 100 unusable bags at the CEO warehouse in Alijis.

Gasataya also announced the creation of a supply team — composed of the Internal Audit, General Services Office, and CEO — to oversee the inventory once the facilities are ready, as well as a disposal committee to evaluate whether the hardened cement can still be repurposed or donated.

Meanwhile, two senior officials of the CEO have been served notices to explain, while four other employees were issued show cause orders in connection with the wasted construction supplies./CJ, WDJ