MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Audit has noted several deficiencies in the Commission on Higher Education's implementation of its various student scholarship and financial assistance programs funded with billions of pesos by the government.
In its annual audit report recently published on its website, the COA said the efficient implementation of CHED's Student Financial Assistance Programs or StuFAPs “was disturbed by the deviations from the established criteria” set under CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 13 series of 2014 as amended by CMO No. 44 series of 2016.
Among the inefficiencies noted by the audit body were the payments of scholarship or financial assistance to the same students twice in a semester, payments to scholars who were not enrolled in the priority courses earlier identified by CHED and payments to scholars with failing grades.
The COA also noted the release of scholarship funds to the CHED Regional Offices (CHEDRO) amid lack of supporting documents and the delay in the processing of the scholars' claims resulting in the expiration of the checks.
Double-payments
Based on the COA record, 203 grantees in six CHEDROs were given “either two types of scholarship/financial assistance or paid twice for the same type of scholarship in a semester” totaling P1.471 million.
The erring CHEDROs identified by COA were Region 1 (Ilocos Region), Region 2 (Cagayan Valley), Region 4-B (MIMAROPA), Region 8 (Eastern Visayas), Region 10 (Northern Mindanao) and Region 12 (SOCCSKSARGEN).
Unqualified scholars
The COA further put CHED to task for the payment of scholarship benefits totaling P2.570 million to unqualified students.
The audit body said P133,500 of the amount was paid to scholars with failing grades while P1.520 million were paid to those who were not enrolled in the priority courses identified by CHED itself.
The state auditors said a total of P22,500 were also paid to scholars who transferred to a higher educational institution (HEI) or academic program without prior approval from their respective CHEDROs while P342,000 was paid to students whose names do not appear in the billing statement submitted by the HEIs.
Unliquidated fund transfers
The COA records also show that CHED's payment of a total of P93.609 million to its five regional offices namely; the National Capital Region, MIMAROPA, Western Visayas (Region 6), Northern Mindanao and CARAGA (Region 13) “was not supported with adequate documents.”
Meanwhile, a total of P120.156 million fund transferred by CHEDROs Davao Region and SOCCSKSARGEN to the HEIs remains unliquidated as of the end of 2016 “thus, failing to ensure the receipt of benefits by the students”.
Delayed processing of claims
The COA also called out the CHED for the delayed processing and release of payments to the beneficiaries.
“In five CHEDROs, processing of claims and release of payments were delayed from one month to more than a year, thus depriving beneficiaries of the immediate use of the funds for their educational needs,” the report read.
The COA said the “lapses” in the processing of the beneficiaries' claims by five CHEDROs (Regions 1, 2, 8, 9 and 12) resulted in unclaimed and stale checks totaling P77,080,214.
The COA recommended to concerned CHEDROs “to cause the refund” of the excess/double-payments to the unqualified scholars and to require the concerned HEIs to liquidated the funds transferred to them. The COA also called on CHED to speed up the processing and release of payments to the scholars in accordance with the timelines set under the StuFAPs.