What’s with Secretary Abad?
| C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S |
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| Jonathan De la Cruz |
This question is being asked by concerned observers after the Senate committee on finance found out yet another questionable realignment in P-Noy’s 2011 budget, courtesy of Budget Secretary Butch Abad. This time the reduction involves the budget of the government’s housing agencies under the HUDCC by 50 percent — from P11 billion in 2010 to P5.6 billion in this year’s appropriations bill, ostensibly, the cut portion was reallocated to the DSWD (the luckiest agency under the proposed 2011 budget with a whooping 1000 percent increase) and the DILG, which in the message advised Congress, will undertake their own housing programs on a more focused basis, whatever that means. Of course, this sleight-of-hand operation did not sit well with Vice-President and HUDCC Chairman Jojo Binay who rightly advised the senators that the cut will definitely impact on the agency’s efforts to accomplish its targets for the year. Even the rationale advanced by Abad’s people that the DSWD is also involved in resettlement projects, especially those affected by last year’s devastating typhoons and that the DILG portion, will be used exclusively for the housing of uniformed personnel, i.e., police, firemen and jail employees, is flippant and unavailing. No less than finance sub-committee chairman, Sen. Ed Angara, decried the re-allotment saying: Why transfer the funds to agencies whose core competence and mandates are far removed from housing?.... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100930com4.html
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