Scrap CCT

DSWD's Dinky-Doo

It was long boring day at the office. I was browsing the Web for news related to DAP, DBM and those pertaining to or referencing Aquino and Abad. I came across DBM’s National Expenditure Program for 2014.

I’ve always been critical of DSWD’s Conditional Cash Transfer Program which was immensely expanded under this administration. I am curious to see how much of taxpayers’ money were allotted to this wasteful program.

For FY 2014, the expenditure program for CCT is as follows:

2014 CCT Budget

Section 3(1) of the department’s expenditure program provides that “DSWD shall submit, either in printed form or by way of electronic document, to the DBM. Copy furnished the House Committee on Appropriations and the Senate Committee on Finance, quarterly reports on the releases and utilization of CCT funds, status of implementation per program component, and the list of beneficiaries per LGU.” My guess however, is that, we the people, will never be granted access to these reports.

I’ve been hearing complaints from beneficiaries that they are not getting their allocations regularly. Cash grants sometimes arrive after every month or quarterly. Another information I got said that it took 2 years for some beneficiaries in Sta. Maria, Bulacan to receive their first cash grants. Worse, they only got cash grant equivalent to 1 year or half of what they are supposed to get. If these are true, then it’s about time to rethink that effectiveness of CCT, better still, scrap it altogether.

Going back to the breakdown of CCT Program allocation, why is there a specific item for “Salaries and Wages” in the amount of 3.379 billion pesos? Does this mean that salaries and wages of DSWD come from the CCT allocation and not from DSWD budget for personnel? How many DSWD employees are directly working for the CCT? Isn’t Ps 3.379 billion pesos too much? As of 2014 the total number of employees of DSWD is 2,388. If we assume that all of them are involved in CCT, average salary will be Ps. 117,915 per month!

Also, what's "Bank Service Fees" for?  How come it will eat up Ps. 550 million of the budget allocated for the program?

I also find dubious are the allocations for "Monitoring/Evaluation" and "Administrative Expenses", totalling almost Ps. 730 million.

Dinky Soliman has a lot of explaining to do on this one.