Despite the recent jailhouse parade of former aides, Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted Thursday he was right in stripping the state comptroller of an oversight power that watchdogs say could have put the brakes on corruption in his administration.
A pre-audit authority gives Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli the ability to review contracts before they are signed — including looking for corruption red flags, like making sure bids are competitive and aren’t rigged to favor a single contractor.
But Cuomo removed that power on construction contracts let by the State University of New York and its nonprofit subsidiaries.
“The pre-audit function never was proven to be effective in finding fraud,” Cuomo claimed during an interview on Albany public radio station WAMC. “An audit doesn’t do that. An investigation does that.”
At the time, he argued the oversight would delay contracts for projects designed to help reboot upstate New York’s flagging economy.
But in subsequent years, the programs turned into a magnet for corruption that led to the conviction of two top former Cuomo aides — Joseph Percoco and Alain Kaloyeros — in the biggest bid-rigging scandal in state history.
One veteran watchdog dismissed Cuomo’s objections as ridiculous on their face.
“That’s just complete nonsense,” said John Kaehny, executive director of government watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “Comptroller oversight of SUNY nonprofits and SUNY construction projects would have caught the fact [Cuomo aides] were rigging the bids.”
“You want to prevent crime, not investigate crime,” Kaehny added. “The governor’s living in an upside-down world.”