COINCIDENCE, solicited, or compelled contracts?
By the number and value of contracts it secured from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Olympus Mining and Builders Group Phils. Corp., the company owned and led by Marilou Laurio Lipana, grew its financial fortunes following the appointment in January 2022 of her husband, Mario G. Lipana, as Commissioner of the Commission on Audit (COA).
From 2016 to 2022, Olympus Mining had neither enrolled nor won any contracts with the DPWH. It had secured earlier contracts of smaller value from some local government units, however.
A search with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows multiple cognate names for “Olympus Mining” and “Olympus Construction,” but no exact “Olympus Mining and Builders Group Phils. Corp.”
This was even as a second company owned by Marilou Laurio Lipana—Gembar Enterprises—was already snaring multiple contracts with the Bureau of Fire Protection and other agencies to supply fire trucks and other goods and services that altogether were worth over another billion pesos.
Read the full Report here: Firms of CoA auditor’s wife score PhP3B from infra, fire trucks, supply contracts
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