COA: CHED flaws...

ees.

“Enforce the legal remedy for the non-payment of the due and demandable SNPLP loans,” COA told CHED.

Audit examiners also called on CHED to exert efforts in improving its collection, one of which is to issue demand letters to the borrowers.

In its value for money audit, COA noted various deficiencies in the imple- mentation of the Student Financial Assistance Programs (StuFAPs) which received funding from the Priority Development Assistance Fund of lawmakers, among others.

“Claims of 33,940 scholars/grantees totalling 169,729,747.07 were processed and paid without adequate supporting documentations,” the audit report said.

COA said at least 20 unqualified ben- eficiaries received educational benefits totalling 1,510,100.

“There were noted delays in the processing of claims ranging from one month to two years and three months, while processed checks payments totalling 294,500 without complete documentation were not released and have become stale checks,’ auditors reported.,

A detailed audit study of the scholarship program showed ten grantees from Region 3 were given more than P15,000 per semester, resulting in excessive payment of 389,744 for one semester.

Audit examiners blamed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between CHED and offices of congressmen for the excessive educational benefits granted to students.

Citing a Supreme Court (SC) ruling on PDAF, auditors said CHED should bear in mind that the list of scholars submitted by lawmakers may be rejected for being “merely recommendatory.”

COA called for a “comprehensive review, evaluation and monitoring” of CHED’s HEI-Based Loan Programs to address deficiencies in its implementation. It also demanded the return of unutilized funds.

COA said the monitoring showed that only 29 out of 284 HEIs were checked by CHED.

Auditors disclosed that 42 HEIs have unutilized scholarship funds totaling

29.8 million while accounting records of 117 HEIs were inadequate.