Binay blames Abad for government underspending

Vice President Jejomar Binay yesterday accused Budget Secretary Florencio Abad of orchestrating the underspending in the government for political reasons.

“It seems that it is their policy to underspend, and then use all of the money when it is election season,” Binay said on the sidelines of an event in Negros Occidental.

The Vice President said a number of Cabinet members have pointed at Abad as the reason for their failure to spend their budget allocation.

“From where I am as Vice President, the problem in our government is monitoring and supervision,” added Binay.

It was not the first time that Binay has locked horns with Abad, a stalwart of the ruling Liberal Party.

Days after resigning from the Cabinet, Binay said Abad should face charges for devising the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), parts of which were later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Abad lashed back at the Vice President, saying the agencies under his leadership prior to his resignation from the Cabinet – particularly the National Housing Authority and the Home Guaranty Corpora- tion – have also benefited from DAP.

Binay also criticized Abad over the non-release of the internal revenue allotment in 2013, which the latter denied.

“We do not withhold these appropriations and they have always been released without condition or delay. All agency transactions between the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) and LGUs (local government units) in 2013 have been properly documented,” Abad said in a statement.

But according to Binay, his statement was based on a Commission on Audit (COA) report released earlier this year.

An audit report posted on the COA website said the shares of the LGUs from national taxes two years ago was not released to them, but was kept under DBM’s administered funds or Fund 103.

Malacañang, on the other hand, yesterday slammed Binay anew as he criticized the Aquino administration for supposedly using funds for education to bribe politicians and get rid of their political foes.

Binay further claimed that 30 percent of the beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer program were not poor.