"Duplicates and inconsistencies" in the database of the 4Ps (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) cost the government P335 million in "significant amount of financial loss."
This was disclosed by the Commission on Audit (COA) in its Performance Audit Report on the 4Ps program, as it once again recommended the cleansing of the 4Ps' database in order to get rid of “duplicates and outliers.”
"To illustrate, we noted in our audit that there were releases of grants to 25,410 validated and delisted duplicates from 18 regions totaling ₱335,485,000.4," the report said.
There were 94,831 suspected duplicates detected in the database back in 2017. From that number, the DSWD was able to resolve 80,804 cases. The COA said that the incidence of duplicates has since then decreased.
However, as of June 30, 2021, COA said there were 103,287 suspected duplicate households covering the periods from 2017 to 2021. The DSWD resolved 83,066 cases, while 20,221 were still subject for field validation, it said.
"We further analyzed the relevant data and found that out of the 20,221 suspected duplicates pending validation, there were 15,202 households wherein the grants should be placed on hold or suspended and yet were able to still receive payments for CYs 2017–2021 amounting to ₱1.05 billion," it pointed out.
COA noted that there were 83,107 duplicate households tagged by the DSWD as "resolved" as of July 2021. From that number, 41,453 household-beneficiaries were delisted or deactivated, 5,512 were archived in the system and were no longer eligible to receive grants, while 36,142 were retained in the program, it also said.
TAGS: #COA #DSWD #4Ps