Binay aide hits Ombudsman over city hall building audit

The camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay yesterday accused the Ombudsman of “exerting pressure” on the Commission on Audit (COA) to release the incomplete audit of the Makati City Hall Building II.

“We have been informed that the Ombudsman has been personally calling up COA officials telling them to transmit to her office its special audit report on Makati Building 2 even if the report does not include the replies or comments of City Hall officials,” United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) president Toby Tiangco said.

Citing COA insiders, Tiangco said Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales “personally called up a ranking COA official prior to her trip abroad demanding that the audit report should be released immediately.”

“In so doing, the Ombudsman wants COA to effectively discard the findings of 11 audits, including one conducted by technical specialists, which concluded there was no overpricing and that the said project complied with COA regulations,” Tiangco said.

He said the COA would violate its own policy that no special audits should be done against candidates running for the May elections. “It will also be in direct contravention of COA resolution 2015-033 dated Sept 29, 2015 prohibiting the conduct of special audit against candidates of the 2016 elections,” he said.

Tiangco said the actions of Morales “bolster UNA’s claim that Morales has displayed blatant partiality when handling complaints involving the Vice President and members of his family.”