COA finds flaws in cash transfer program

IT is not fair for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to overpay beneficiaries of its Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program because of the unsystematic database of the poor recipient families it has kept for the program, the Commission on Audit (COA) said.

Because of a database plagued with double entries, state auditors recently opined that the CCT might not have fully given a helping hand to “bonafide and deserving poor household members.”

Touted as the agency’s flagship poverty alleviation program, the CCT or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), provides cash grants to extremely poor households for a period of five years at the most upon compliance with conditions on health and education.

The CCT grants P500 per month to a pregnant woman at the time of registration and with children zero to 14 years old. It also provides assistance to a household that has children three to 14 years old who are enrolled in a day care or pre-school, elementary or secondary school.

But in a recent report on the DSWD, the Audit commission found holes in the sampled payroll, database, clean list and liquidation report of the Land Bank of the Philippines in Cagayan Valley (Region 2), Central Luzon (Region 3) and Calabarzon (Region 4A), among others, which were entered twice in the payroll of beneficiaries.

COA cited occurrence of discrepancies in the names of 91 grantees which “casts doubts on the reliability and accuracy which will affect not only the proper implementation of the 4Ps of the [DSWD]” but also on other social protection programs of other national government agencies, non-government organizations, and civil society groups.

The Audit commission pointed out that there were double entries of the names of 3,146 grantees in 250 payrolls covering the payment period May 25, 2010. This resulted in the accumulation of idle funds in the Land Bank amounting to P19.468 million for over-the-counter payments and P516,300 for cash card payments.

“This likewise exposes government funds and [World Bank] loan proceeds to risks of possible losses or misuse,” COA said.

The CCT sources its fund from the 2010 General Appropriations Act, a $405-million loan from the World Bank, and a $400-million loan from the Asian Development Bank.

COA said that out of 1,400 sampled beneficiaries, 96 were not extremely poor and were earning income, prompting them to doubt the accuracy of the methodology the DSWD used in the selection of poor families for the CCT program.

Drug users, gamblers

The Audit commission found out that there were families who were listed under the CCT who resort to illegal drugs and are engaged in gambling. There are also beneficiaries whose family members are working abroad, have a six-door apartment and owned a variety of businesses.

Because of a large number of beneficiaries, COA limited the sampling of its audit for the period May 25, 2010.

Verification disclosed that beneficiaries’ names totaling 2,988 were entered twice in the payroll lists and therefore funded twice, COA pointed out.

“For this period [May 25, 2010] the amount of [over-the-counter] fund transfer for the 2,988 beneficiaries amounted to P19,468,900. Since half of the 2,988 pertain to beneficiaries’ duplicate names, only half of P19,468,900 or P9,734,450 was valid and legitimate,” it added.

The educational benefits covering November to December 2009 and the year 2010 for the National Capital Region (Metro Manila), and Regions III and IV-A were overpaid by P9.7 million because the DSWD paid 4,198 unqualified beneficiaries, the Audit commission further stated.

Review of the initial release of educational grant disclosed that children who are either 15 years old or are not attending school were also given cash grants.

The DWSD replied that the overpayment of beneficiaries for education grant was caused by an error in their profiles.

“The beneficiaries are monitored and paid because of the wrong data encoded in the database,” the Central Office of the DSWD in Quezon City (Metro Manila) said.

With the discrepancies, COA said that the implementation of the CCT is “doubtful” because the DSWD failed to validate and verify the correctness and reliability of the database it used.

The Audit commission asked the DSWD to ensure first that the database of all its beneficiaries had been verified and validated and the corresponding changes corrected and updated.

“This guarantees that only bonafide and deserving poor household members are recipients of the social protection programs and the [CCT] of the government and also for the maximum and proper utilization of loan proceeds from [World Bank],” it said.

“The objectives of the program may not be fully achieved if the benefits will not be received by the intended beneficiaries,” COA added. –JOHN CONSTANTINE G. CORDON Reporter, Manila Times