Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday stated that Office of the Vice President requested P125 million in confidential funds in August 2022 and obtained the allocations in December that yr.
Duterte thus stated throughout the deliberation of the Senate Committee on Finance as regards the proposed P2.385-billion price range of the OVP for 2024.
“The amount is correct and that is correct, we requested confidential funds to the Office of the President as early as August 2022 and we were only granted the confidential funds in December 2022,” Duterte stated.
The P125 million was a part of the P221.4 million price range transferred to the Office of the President (OP) by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in December of final yr.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III identified throughout the price range listening to that there was no merchandise within the OVP price range for confidential bills final yr.
“It’s nothing, it’s zero. It’s not even mentioned in the line budgeting for the OVP and yet at year’s end calendar 2022, we will now have an entry [of] P125 million charged to a line which did not exist at the very beginning,” Pimentel stated.
The Commission on Audit (COA), in its 2022 Annual Audit Report, disclosed that the OVP had P125 million in confidential bills final yr regardless of not having an appropriation for intelligence or confidential funds underneath the 2022 GAA.
Earlier, Duterte stated there was nothing irregular or unauthorized within the utilization of the P125 million even when such an merchandise was not offered underneath final yr’s GAA.
She additionally stated the OVP had already deliberate and recognized occasions, actions, and initiatives that might be coated by the confidential fund as early as August 2022— two months after she took her oath because the fifteenth Vice President of the nation. —NB, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
