Cannot find rcc.exe, attempts to search in current working directory

It seems the correct path is not being used for rcc.exe in Windows/MinGW. For some reason it is not looking in Qt's \bin directory but instead is looking for rcc.exe in a folder called 'bin' in the currect working directory which in this case is `E:/Buildsys/svn/smtube/src'.

...
bin\rcc.exe -name icons icons.qrc -o release\qrc_icons.cpp
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, bin\rcc.exe -name icons icons.qrc -o release\qrc_icons.cpp, ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
mingw32-make[1]: *** [release/qrc_icons.cpp] Error 2
mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `E:/Buildsys/svn/smtube/src'
mingw32-make: *** [release] Error 2

In 4.8.2, compiled using the same exact compiler, doesn't exhibit this problem. As you see it simply says "bin\rcc.exe" instead of "E:\Buildsys\Qt\4.8.3_x64\bin\rcc.exe" where it was compiled in. It doesn't appear that any of the other executables like moc and uic have problems, for example they are exhibiting the correct behavior by using the full path name:

...
e:\Buildsys\Qt\4.8.3_x64\bin\uic.exe configdialog.ui -o ui_configdialog.h
e:\Buildsys\Qt\4.8.3_x64\bin\uic.exe about.ui -o ui_about.h
E:\Buildsys\Qt\4.8.3_x64\bin\moc.exe -DUNICODE -DQT_LARGEFILE_SUPPORT ...

I can workaround it/successfully compile by copying rcc.exe to `E:/Buildsys/svn/smtube/src/bin' but that isn't a real fix.

qmake -query shows all the right paths, and everything is pointing to the right Qt folder and also in my qtvars.bat, which looks like this:

set QTDIR=E:\Buildsys\Qt\4.8.3_x64
set PATH=E:\Buildsys\Qt\4.8.3_x64\bin
set PATH=%PATH%;E:\Buildsys\mingw64\bin
set PATH=%PATH%;%SystemRoot%\System32;C:\Program Files\SlikSVN\bin
set QMAKESPEC=win32-g++

If something is unclear let me know..