COA confirms CCT holes

COA CONFIRMS CCT HOLES. . . The Commission on Audit (COA) found several discrepancies and holes in the President Aquino flagship Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program. It discovered:

1. It paid out CCT cash to families who were not the poorest of the poor;

2. The factors used by the DSWD in the survey of poor households were insufficient to determine qualified beneficiaries;

3. There were double entries in the list of beneficiaries causing losses;

4. P363 million was transferred to the Landbank without an accompanying list of beneficiaries, leaving the huge amount lying idle;

5. P193 million was released to beneficiaries even though they did not meet the requirements of the compliance verification system;

6. By the end of 2010, P6.64 billion released to Landbank was unliquidated;

7. The DSWD has not decentralized the management of fund disbursements;

8. The database of poor beneficiaries was incomplete making it difficult to verify, raising the possibility of ghost beneficiaries;

9. The DSWD did not comply strictly with the guidelines under the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction Manual of Operations;

10. The COA found that some barangays list only one or six household beneficiaries. Not all barangays have been covered;

11. The DSWD should revise the guidelines on education grants. The COA suggested as Columnist Solita Monsod and I have previously suggested that the program so far conducted be reviewed, losses removed, the list of beneficiaries cleaned up and the handling of funds be decentralized and stronger coordination be effected with municipal mayors.

This is a clear case of haste makes waste with billions involved.

This CCT plan is the first challenge to P-Noy’s anti corruption campaign. –Ernesto Maceda, Philippine Star