Your gov’t at work–Budget Secretary Abad

There is nothing sinister or fascist about it but simply “good governance at work.’’

This was how Budget Secretary Florencio Abad on Monday defended the executive branch’s bid to move the funds for unfilled positions in government into another fund in the proposed 2012 national budget.

Florencio was reacting to Sen. Joker Arroyo’s assertion that “evil geniuses’’ were behind the drafting of a provision in the proposed budget that would allow the Office of the President to take the savings of judicial, legislative and constitutional bodies amounting to over P101 million under the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefit Funds (MPBF).

In a statement, Abad said the executive branch was taking this move to segregate the funds for unfilled positions of the Constitutional and Fiscal Autonomy Group (CFAG) into the MPBF so as to “introduce greater transparency and accountability in fiscal management to correct an irregular practice in the past that had been the source of diversion and conversion of public funds.’’