Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 8) – The Commission on Audit (COA) flagged the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) Region 9 field office for the various deficiencies in the implementation of the modified conditional cash transfer (MCCT).
Under the ₱660.568-million worth of transactions for the implementation, COA noted violation of the procurement law and lack of proper documentation.
According to the annual audit report on DSWD for 2019, the state auditors noted the following defects and deficiencies in the implementation of MCCT:
.Procurement of service providers for the implementation of the skills training modality of the MCCT, amounting to ₱163.937-million, were not done through competitive bidding.
.Inadequate and inappropriate supporting documents for liquidations amounting to ₱93.182-million.
.Delayed submission of 21 memoranda of agreement amounting to ₱163.937 million.
.Unreasonable delay in the liquidation of cash advances for the MCCT skills training amounting to ₱79.963 million.
.Incomplete supporting documents on disbursement vouchers and report on cash disbursement amounting to ₱141.562 million.
.Non-submission of disbursement vouchers for the implementation of MCCT skills training worth ₱18.885 million.
In response, the DSWD Region 9 field office said it “relied in good faith” on the National Project Management Office (NPMO) after it allowed them to use cash assistance payroll considering that the procurement process is “not feasible and not convenient.”
Moreover, COA said that while the NPMO categorically allowed the use of cash assistance payroll in the implementation of MCCT’s skills-training, the audit team said that the Sustainable Livelihood Program Field Operations Manual which was referred to by MCCT in the implementation of its skills training provided that “for financial transactions between DSWD and partners, the services of the latter maybe employed following RA 9184, through competitive bidding, as well as alternative methods of procurement,”
On the other hand, the Region 9 field office said the lack of documents could possibly due to the practice of partial liquidation where supporting documents attached to previous liquidations were no longer attached to the present ones.
But it noted that it has already issued a directive prohibiting partial liquidation and the accounting unit started to attached journal entry vouchers in every liquidation report in compliance with COA.
