House to resume probe on 2019 budget mess on Jan 21
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2019 04:43:12 +0000
THE House of Representatives’ Committee on Rules will resume its investigation into the alleged 2019 budget “insertions on Monday, January 21.
The panel is expected to take off from the January 15 hearing, which uncovered P198 billion worth of big-time infrastructure projects, which the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) allocated funds for in 2018.
Of this amount, P168 billion was appropriated to the Department of Transportation (DoTr), which included P37 billion worth of contracts for consultants.
“As we conduct our next hearing on Monday, we will even show that the DBM earned billions from these anomalous transactions. All these money, unaccounted for according to CoA (Commission on Audit),” House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. said in a statement on Friday.
The committee invited Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno for the third time.
“Instead of sending his undersecretary and other senior DBM officials for grilling by congressmen, Secretary Diokno should be the one doing the explaining. He is the top decision maker in the department, and the buck stops with him,” Andaya said.
The panel also invited Bingle Gutierrez, the executive director of the DBM Procurement Service who supplied the information on the P198-billion contracts that were bidded out; Giovanni Lopez, assistant secretary for procurement of the DoTr; and other transportation officials.
Diokno is also being questioned for allegedly facilitating the insertion of some P75 billion under the proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for 2019 to favor a construction firm owned by his in-laws in Casiguran, Sorsogon.
Diokno has denied the allegations that were first brought up at the Question Hour in the House plenary last December regarding irregularities in the P3.757-trillion budget for 2019. MARY GLEEFER JALEA
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