DSWD beneficiaries questioned by COA

By: Marlon Ramos - 10 years ago

Secretary Dinky Soliman INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Families not on the list of beneficiaries, government employees and Filipinos working abroad received cash doles from the administration’s centerpiece program to address poverty, according to state auditors.

There were also double payments to people whose names appeared on the list twice, the auditors said.

The Commission on Audit (COA) said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) handed out more than P1 billion to about 364,000 families whose names were “missing” from the database of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program in 2013.

First introduced by the Arroyo administration, the CCT, or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), is patterned after antipoverty programs implemented in Latin American countries.

Under the program, poor families are entitled to a P500 monthly cash grant. The DSWD also provides P300 in educational assistance for children who are enrolled in schools.

In return, a family must comply with program conditions, such as sending children to school, taking them to health centers for checkups and attending family development sessions.

The aim is for the children to finish high school and give them better chances at employment to break the cycle of poverty in their families.

Ineligible beneficiaries

In its audit of the DSWD’s financial status, the COA also questioned the documents pertaining to the return of nearly P2.5 billion in CCT funds, which had been allocated to “ineligible beneficiaries.”

It said the “refunds of grants” amounting to P2.46 billion from Land Bank of the Philippines for “ineligible beneficiaries and unclaimed grants … were not completely documented to establish the correctness of recorded returned grants.”

“We recommended that [for the DSWD] to comply … refunds of ineligible beneficiaries and unclaimed OTC (over-the-counter) grants be duly supported with the list of beneficiaries,” the COA said.

Almost 4M families

It said the amount represented 6.32 percent of the P38.915 billion in cash grants which the DSWD distributed to almost 4 million poor families last year.

COA auditors also discovered another ugly truth behind the CCT: A total of 428 beneficiaries were found to be barangay officials, government employees, overseas Filipino workers and members of middle-income families who received a total of P1.567 million in cash grants.

“(Their) inclusion in the program is inconsistent with the target beneficiaries of 4Ps from the poorest sector of society,” the COA said.

The 135-page report, which the COA submitted to the office of Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman on Dec. 15, did not conclude that the funds had been misused, misappropriated or embezzled by DSWD officials.

DSWD explanation

Sought for comment, Soliman on Wednesday said her office and the DSWD officers concerned had already submitted their answers to the observations of the COA audit team headed by Marieta Andoy.

Although there were adverse findings on the department’s financial transactions, Soliman reiterated that the COA did not find anything that may suggest that the CCT funds were mishandled by the DSWD.

In a mobile phone interview, Soliman said department officials already met with the COA audit team and presented their explanations during the exit interview.

No suspicions of misuse

“They (COA auditors) submitted that they did not see any suspicions of misuse or misappropriation of the funds. It’s really about the documentation, which they are seeking from us,” Soliman told the Inquirer.

“In fact, they admitted that they were able to interview those who actually received the cash grants (but were not on the list of beneficiaries),” she added.

Soliman promised to provide the Inquirer a copy of her office’s answer to the COA report on Dec. 26.

As to the purported missing beneficiaries who already received cash, she acknowledged that some of the names of the legitimate beneficiaries were not included in the “modified” CCT list.

IP families

“Some of those were families of indigenous peoples (IPs) who were not included in the survey,” she explained.

She said the documents of the distribution of CCT grants were jointly handled by the DSWD, Land Bank and their conduit organizations.

In its report, the COA said the DSWD distributed P1.081 billion to 364,636 beneficiaries who were not listed in its National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction program, the government’s “standardized targeting mechanism for identifying who and where the poor are.”

The COA said this “resulted in additional cost to the government in the distribution of CCT” grants.

It said P168.122 million was also given to 21,117 “non-poor beneficiaries.”

Double payments

In addition, state auditors also disclosed that there were “double payments” amounting to P46.502 million for 4,320 beneficiaries whose names appeared on the list of CCT grantees twice.

“(This) … not only resulted in incurrence of additional costs for the double payment of grants, but also misstated the cash and donation accounts,” the COA said.

P330M unclaimed

Of the P10.626 billion that the DSWD deposited in various Land Bank branches nationwide, the COA said P330.3 million had remained unclaimed by its listed beneficiaries for 2013 in eight regions through the DSWD’s over-the-counter scheme.

“The unutilized amount … could have been reduced had revalidation been intensified on identified beneficiaries who failed to receive the grant after every two-month payouts,” the COA said.

The state auditors said the DSWD project officers should have reported the failure of some 4Ps beneficiaries to collect their cash grants directly from the bank to improve the distribution system of the CCT program.

Intensify validation

The COA urged Soliman to order the National Project Management Office and the regional heads of the program to “intensify the validation of all unpaid beneficiaries and require prompt reporting on the status of the beneficiaries.”

“This will minimize the occurrence of unpaid grants,” it said.

In some areas, state auditors said CCT beneficiaries failed to get their cash assistance directly from Land Bank due to the cost of transportation.

High transpo cost

For example, families receiving cash assistance in far-flung communities in San Francisco, Quezon, had to spend P600 for the rent of habal-habal, or motorcycles, to collect their P500 monthly stipend.

The COA said the DSWD had directed the Land Bank and its conduits to “deliver the grants in areas where the beneficiaries will incur only P100 in transportation cost in claiming the grants.”

“The intention of the DSWD is commendable, but could not be applied to all the beneficiaries of the CCT grants numbering millions and living in different places,” it said.