Santo Domingo.- The news site washingtoncitypaper.com reports that the mayor of the city Sosúa, Puerto Plata province, paid US$11,000 for a fire truck with “no written contract,” and “just a receipt from the shipper.”

“A heretofore mystery man in the fishy fire truck affair has spoken: Vladimir Céspedes, mayor of the Dominican Republic city of Sosúa, told reporters today about the caper that has generated a great deal of political heat in this town,” the Web site reports, adding that in fact,  “it’s not just this town. Céspedes has his own political problems: his own city council wants to know what happened to the US$11,000.”

The Sosua City Council, it said, also wants to know the whereabouts of the money its Mayor paid expecting a fire truck and ambulance in return—no small amount for a city which has a paltry monthly budget. “There was no written contract, he says, just a receipt from the shipper.”

“Not only they, but I want the money back,” Céspedes says.

The news site reports that Céspedes told them that the money was paid in cash to Sinclair Skinner, friend and political associate of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, “in the expectation that the funds would finance transport of the rigs to Sosúa.”

It reports that Céspedes said Skinner has presented himself as being very close to Fenty. “The trucks made it as far as Miami before political pressure led the Fenty administration to halt the transfer.”