BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
ILOILO – Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. is furious.
“Relatives or not, I don’t care. We will send them to jail once we know who they are,” he boomed.
Yesterday, Defensor ordered an investigation on the alleged falsification of provincial capitol documents covering P1.65-million worth of transactions involving one supplier for drugs, medicines and apparatuses of district hospitals.
The Provincial Legal Office has been tasked to conduct the probe.
The subjects were 17 disbursement vouchers to Diomar Trading as payment for hospital supplies and equipment that the provincial government ordered.
The provincial government was supposed to pay only P1,482,034.27 but the Provincial Treasurer’s Office issued check more than the amount due – P1,652,379.48 –resulting to a loss of P170,345.21.
The discrepancy angered Defensor who takes pride in making the provincial government graft-free since his return to the capitol in 2010.
Also yesterday, Defensor issued Executive Order 148 suspending payments and award of contracts in favor of Diomar Trading pending the report and recommendation of the investigating body.
“We have so many employees in the province and it is inevitable that some would resort to this kind of doing. How disgusting,” he said.
In documents submitted to the governor, Provincial Accountant Lyd Tupas reported that vouchers were altered, resulting to a higher net due to the supplier.
“These vouchers have discrepancies in the amount due as per out logbook compared to the amount on the check,” said Tupas.
According to Tupas, it was during the encoding of the paid vouchers to Diomar Trading that erasures were noticed.
He also discovered that the deductions for the retention money were substituted with surety bond resulting to higher net amount due to the supplier.
Defensor said the investigating team should be “prepared to displace those employees who may have been involved in these irregularities.”
Once the culprits were identified, Defensor threatened to file appropriate charges against them. (With a report from Jezza A. Nepomoceno, Capitol News/PN)
