COA: DSWD Failed To Distribute P1.9-Billion SAP Aid
Since the cash subsidy was allocated under the Bayanihan 1, the undistributed amount had to be reverted to the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) when the law expired in 2020.
At least P1.9 billion of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) was not distributed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to its intended beneficiaries, the Commission on Audit (COA) said in its latest report.
“Cash advances (CAs) granted to Special Disbursing Officers (SDOs)/Accountable Officers (AOs) of DSWD Field Office (FO) National Capital Region (NCR) and VI (Western Visayas) for implementation of SAP amounting to P1,908,536,000.00 were not distributed to beneficiaries, depriving them of the financial assistance needed during the pandemic,” the COA said in its 2021 annual audit report on the DSWD.
COA records showed that the DSWD’s FO NCR and FO Region 6 failed to distribute P1.753 billion and P155.094 million in cash assistance or “ayuda,” respectively, under the SAP-Emergency Subsidy Program (ESP).
Since the SAP-ESP cash subsidy was allocated under Republic Act No. 11469, the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act or “Bayanihan 1,” the undistributed amount had to be reverted to the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) when the law expired in 2020.
In FO NCR, the COA said the amount of cash advances (CAs) that the SDOs and AOs had to refund was higher than what they had paid out to SAP beneficiaries.
“In FO NCR, the refunds were attributed to the poor planning and monitoring on the part of the program implementers in the implementation of SAP-ESP, as the payment turnout ranges only from fifteen to thirty percent as compared to the refunds made out of the total CAs granted,” the COA said.
“Further, it was also observed that schedules of payouts were not yet determined before drawing the CAs,” the COA added.
Aside from the DSWD’s conduct of “deduplication process” on SAP beneficiaries, other reasons cited by the FO NCR for its failure to distribute the amount were challenges in coordinating with the local government units (LGUs) especially in terms of convening the SAP beneficiaries for payout due to restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The FO NCR explained that the LGUs “have also their own programs to be implemented as urgent as that of the DSWD.”
As for the FO 6, its low distribution rate was mainly because of reliance to an inaccurate list of beneficiaries.
“In FO VI, the absence of a clean list of beneficiaries was due to the inability of the DSWD to install an adequate monitoring and control mechanism in its payment through Service Provider, which resulted in the reliance to an inaccurate list,” the COA said.
“This resulted in the incurrence of undistributed grant which were not utilized by the program implementers. Thus, huge amount of unexpended government funds was refunded after 2 to 6 months, which could have been used to aid the poor during the pandemic,” the COA added.
The audit body recommended that the DSWD instruct its regional directors and program implementers to carefully plan the granting of CAs to SDOs and AOs to truly address the needs of its programs.
Meanwhile, the COA said that as of end of 2021, a total of P2.552 billion in CAs granted by the DSWD to its SDOs and AOs in connection with the implementation of the SAP-ESP, remained unliquidated.
The FO NCR was specifically called out for its failure to close down its SAP account with Land Bank of the Philippines and remit the account balance amounting to P276.589 million to the BTr, despite the end of the SAP’s implementation.
The COA said this was mainly due to the delayed submission of liquidation reports by the SDOs and AOs.
“The failure of the agency to close the aforementioned bank account and remit the balances to the BTr deprived opportunity to use the fund for priority programs of the government, especially now that we are still on the recovery period brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the COA said.
The audit body recommended to DSWD to demand all its SDOs and AOs to submit all the necessary liquidation documents and immediately refund all the unexpended balance in connec-tion with the SAP implementation.
The COA said that the DSWD must also “cause the withholding of the salaries of the erring SDOs/AOs.”
