Andaya open to House probe on P10B splurging
OPARR Director Karen Jimeno. PHOTO BY MATIKAS SANTOS
MANILA, Philippines—Saying fund releases on his watch were aboveboard, former Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya said on Wednesday he was prepared to face a House inquiry on the alleged P10-billion spending spree in the dying days of the Arroyo administration.
“I am open to answering queries of my colleagues,” Andaya, now a Camarines Sur representative, said in a statement a day after the House committee on good government and public accountability said it planned to summon him. “Although the records are not with me now, I am confident that the release of funds complied with the law.”
Rep. Oscar Rodriguez, chair of the committee, said he planned to invite Andaya and former and current officials of the Department of Budget and Management in connection with its inquiry into the disbursements for 1,074 projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the months before President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stepped down in 2010.
The amount was part of the P69 billion in congressional insertions in the 2010 General Appropriations Act passed with a conditional veto that releases would be subject to identification by Congress of new revenue sources that would support the projects.
No revenue measures were identified but the implementation of the infrastructure projects, which included roads and bridges, dredging and construction of government buildings. The P10.2 billion was released directly to various congressional districts in the first half of 2010.
The House committee is also awaiting a report from the Commission on Audit on whether the projects were properly implemented.
Andaya noted that Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson had stated during the previous hearing on the subject in March that there was nothing anomalous in the project disbursements and receipts. He said he was confident that documents would corroborate what had been reported previously.
“Even if I will insist that the release was in accordance with the law and followed established procedures, such would be viewed as self-serving, thus it would be better if the actions I have taken will be checked against official records,” he added.
He also said implementing agencies carried out the projects and any irregularities would have been uncovered during the audit.
During the hearing in March, Singson noted that the DPWH projects funded by P10 billion in congressional insertions were farmed out at their approved budget cost, right down to the last peso. He said this indicated that they were not subjected to public bidding, otherwise the cost would have gone down.
Singson also observed that most of the projects were broken down into small parcels, ostensibly to avoid holding tenders. For example, he said, a P100-million project was parceled out into smaller undertakings of P500,000.
Originally posted at 8:45 pm | Wednesday, May 7, 2014
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