Cataño mayor-elect Hiram Torres Montalvo announced on Tuesday that the municipality’s advertising contract with Publicidad Tere Suárez will be canceled. The firm was named in a recent report by the Office of the Comptroller on the alleged use of municipal resources for partisan political activities by the late mayor, Julio Alicea Vasallo. In written statements, Torres Montalvo said that as the transition reveals contracts granted to favor friends and that do not serve Cataño residents, they will be eliminated following applicable procedures, and that this advertising contract is one of them.
He said the people’s money must go toward improving services and meeting residents’ needs, and that this will be his administration’s criterion. The first day of transition hearings addressed the report’s findings and any measures the Alicea Vasallo administration took to correct them. Manuel Díaz Saldaña, a former comptroller and former Treasury secretary who sits on the incoming committee and led the questioning on the report, called for immediate action.
He said the people named in the findings must be given room to defend themselves, but that this does not prevent dropping the services of the company. He added that personnel should be evaluated to determine whether an administrative investigation and corrective actions are warranted, and called for a policy of zero tolerance for corruption.