PERHAPS it was sheer sloppiness on Budget Secretary Florencio Abad’s part in managing taxpayers’ money. Or perhaps it was his mindset that the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was his creation, and that he could get the simple-minded President Aquino to approve and fund any project that he wanted. But 13 major projects funded out of the DAP scheme involving P29 billion in state funds, or 20 percent of the P144 billion amount released under that mechanism, had not been approved by Aquino. At the very least, there is no document showing that he approved these 13 projects. That means a single Cabinet official, Abad, wielded the absolute power to decide where government funds were spent. And in case any of you forgot, the DAP funds were not approved by Congress. The third phase of the DAP was purportedly authorized by Aquino through his approval of DAP-funded projects that Abad proposed in his June 25, 2012 “Memorandum for the President.”
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 01:54:21 +0000
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