1 in 10 CCT beneficiaries ‘not really poor’ – COA

Close to 10% of beneficiaries of government’s Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program are “not really poor” and are not qualified for assistance. A Commission on Audit report said that a random survey among CCT beneficiaries in 4 regions looked into the actual existence of beneficiaries, their eligibility, the correctness of grants they received, and their compliance with program conditionalities. COA special teams found that 9.52% or about 1 in 10 households sampled should have been disqualified. They found that some of the beneficiaries in Baguio City, Abra, Apayao, Batangas and Iloilo had concrete houses and had a household member with a regular job and steady income. Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said the department is in the process of addressing problems and is already reviewing and revalidating families that the audit team has found to be unqualified. As of November 2012, over 3 million households have been registered as CCT beneficiaries.

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