Fictitious trainees at Tesda bared

Ghost baristas, ghost schools.

They are among the “beneficiaries” of a skills training conducted by a government agency, according to the Commission on Audit (COA).

The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) spent more than P1.9 million for the training of bartenders and baristas, but the existence of their school and the list of trainees were “doubtful [and] fictitious,” the COA said in a 2017 audit report.

The training was implemented with the Technivoc Institute Corp.

Resources wasted

The COA also found that Tesda paid P9.3 million to AMA Computer College (AMACC) for computer training supposedly done in 2015 and 2016, despite the college’s submission of “doubtful” scholars and training reports.

“With the reported fictitious scholars/trainees, the TWSP (Training for Work Scholarship Program) objective to produce skilled graduates to be productive/employable was defeated [and], instead, put government efforts and resources to waste,” the COA said.

It added that the scheme deprived other qualified beneficiaries to be scholars under the program.

The implementation of TWSP in 2017, with P2.4 billion in funding, incurred delays due to various reasons, the COA said, with only 52 percent of the target number of graduates attained.

Employment generator

Tesda launched TWSP as a training scholarship program to “support rapid, inclusion and sustained economic growth through course offerings to key employment generators” in various technical and vocational sectors.

Under the program, Tesda was tasked with prioritizing trainees without formal or vocational training “as well as those coming from regions or provinces where the absolute number of poor residents and the incidence of poverty are high.”

Records showed that Tesda allotted P79.4 million for TWSP in 2015 and 2016. Of this amount, P13.7 million was set aside for payment to AMACC Manila for training software developers.

P30,000 per scholar

The program targeted 455 trainees, with a cost of P30,000 for each scholar, the audit report showed.

Upon verification, however, the COA discovered that many listed scholars were fictitious, while the identity of other trainees could not be checked.

“Of the total 310 scholars claimed by AMACC, only 115 were successfully reached through phone calls and personal interviews,” the COA said, adding that 195 trainees were not reached through their listed contact numbers.

Statements from the other 77 trainees also contradicted the TWSP report, saying they did not attend the training. Others said they were regular students of other AMACC campuses.

“Further, 12 of these 77 students interviewed by the audit team disclosed they were instructed to sign attendance sheets, TWSP scholarship vouchers and ID (identification card),” the COA said.

Payment despite deficiencies

State auditors also noted irregularities on the attendance sheets, such as missing dates or overlapping dates of training.

“Despite the glaring deficiencies and inconsistencies of the documents submitted by AMACC, Tesda Manila still processed the (disbursement vouchers) for payment without validating the veracity of the claims on the actual training conducted and the existence, qualifications of the supposed TWSP scholars trained by AMACC,” the COA said.

Auditors directed Tesda to require its district offices to ensure that tech-voc institution billings for training were duly validated and inspected, before payment was made.

Tesda response

In their response to the audit findings, Tesda officials blamed the agency’s lack of manpower for their failure to monitor the actual conduct of the TWSP training.

Following the discovery of the irregularities in July 2017, AMACC reportedly refunded Tesda P9.3 million last April, which, in turn, the agency remitted to the national treasury, according to the COA report.

Tesda also spent P1.5 million for 15 training sessions in 2016 with Technivoc, but the COA found several irregularities.

School not found

The school was not found in the declared address. Barangay officials attested that no training was conducted in their respective localities. And 16 scholars interviewed by COA auditors said they never attended the training.

The COA urged Tesda to conduct site inspections of their accredited tech-voc institutions, review their accreditation and reassess their capacity to conduct its training programs.