Philippines
Philippines

‘Probe P50-M cash transfers to ghost beneficiaries’

Rappler.com

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Gabriela Representative Emmi de Jesus says recent COA findings support the call made by solons in 2013 to look into government's flagship anti-poverty program

PANTAWID PROGRAM. Should Congress probe the alleged irregularities in the Aquino administration's conditional cash transfer program? Photo by RAPPLER/Leanne Jazul

MANILA, Philippines – Now there’s no way for the administration to dismiss probe calls as politically motivated. 

Citing findings of the Commission on Audit (COA) that over P50 million in conditional cash transfer (CCT) was made to “ghost” beneficiaries, a congresswoman is seeking an investigation into the Aquino government’s centerpiece anti-poverty program.

Gabriela Representative Emmi de Jesus on Thursday, January 9, called on the House committee on poverty alleviation to act on a resolution filed in 2013 by lawmakers belonging to the Makabayan bloc seeking to probe the CCT program.

“This COA report is ample proof that Congress should review President Aquino’s dubious flagship poverty program,” De Jesus said.

The program, otherwise known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), is under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). 

A recently released 2012 Consolidated Audit Report on Official Development Assistance Programs and Projects found that the DSWD allegedly gave P50.15 million to 7,782 non-existent household beneficiaries. 

Aside from this, DSWD also has yet to account for P3.18 billion in unliquidated funds from 2008 to 2012 under the CCT program. 

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman has denied allegations of fund misuse, saying that the anomalies over non-existent beneficiaries were due to a technological glitch in the database of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction. 

Soliman said that upon double-checking, the names of the 7,782 household were, in fact, in the list, while 20 names were re-encoded after some files were corrupted. 

In a GMA News report, Soliman said the department has asked its IT staff to show COA how to find the names. 

“When COA makes a report, they put the names of those that they claim they did not see. Together with COA personnel, we went through the listing from our database in the NHTS-PR and Pantawid Pamilya. On second pass, the names were there,” Soliman said in a statement. 

Soliman, however, admitted that the DSWD has only liquidated 55% of the unliquidated disbursements cited in the COA report. 

The department vows to finish the liquidation by June 2014, Soliman told GMA News. 

The CCT program has been given a P62.6 billion budget for 2014, up by 42% from P44 billion last year. It is targeted to cover 4.3 million households, more than the 3.9 million targeted last year. – Angela Casauay/Rappler.com

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