CITY OF MALOLOS–The Bulacan Provincial Government acquired P16-Million worth twenty units of Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) finally replacing its more than two decade old already malfunctioning service cars.
Gov. Daniel Fernando led the blessing more than a week ago of the first five units of Toyota Rush, a non-high end, non-luxury SUV valued at around P800,000 each as service vehicles of the different departments and its chiefs.
Fernando said the vehicles are bought in batches and the next three sets of five units will arrive in the coming weeks.
The Capitol acquired an initial of 20 units following inventory wherein almost all the department’s service vehicles were found already malfunctioning. The service vehicles were acquired during the then term of former Gov. Josefina Dela Cruz about 20 years ago.
Fernando said the cars, being old and often are not in good condition were already a headache to the department heads and to the budget of the Capitol due to regular and frequent repairs.
The Toyota Rush units replaced the old Mitsubishi Adventure SUV’s and sedans.
Fernando said the Capitol ranking employees who are all well performing and doing their job particularly in the field deserve new and better vehicles.
“Like that of what our Provincial Public Affairs Office is using, that of our Tourism, History, Arts and Culture office under Eli, they often malfunctioned and underwent troubles on the road, they deserve better service cars while in the field performing their works,” the governor said.
The governor announced replacing the already malfunctioning old cars upon his assumption to office in July 2019 but he had to set aside this and gave more focus on the expenditures needed to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Right at the very start when I assumed office in July 2019, it is among our priorities to provide our departments with better service vehicles. All of them have been using old and already replaceable cars which give them problems and headache on the road”.
While they will dispose off the old ones through bidding, they will keep the units which can still be used by other personnel working in the field, it was learned.
