HUDCC to be dissolved

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — An official of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) said here yesterday that the Pinatubo Project and Management Office (PPMO) which is set to be dissolved tomorrow, is being audited "to find out whether accusations being hurled against it is true."

Even as still unpaid employees of the PPMO wept during a Mass held at their compound here yesterday morning, HUDCC deputy secretary general Pamela Yabut said that the audit report of her agency will be ready in two weeks.

Yabut said that an audit of the PPMO is being conducted to "find out whether the accusations being hurled against PPMO are true." The audit started two weeks ago, she added.

She declined to give details on the "accusations", but noted that the audit is zeroing in on financial concerns as well as on the efficiency of the PPMO. The results of the audit will be made public, she added.

The PPMO is set to be dissolved tomorrow after Malacañang failed to issue an executive order extending its term. Its 105 employees have not received their salaries since last February.

Yabut noted that the PPMO, which took over the functions of the defunct Mt. Pinatubo Commission (MPC) in 2001, has never been audited. The MPC itself had been controversial amid allegations of anomalies in the implementation of anti-lahar and resettlement projects it had implemented since its creation in 1992.