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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider COA commits to do House-sought special audit on CHEd--Quimbo

COA commits to do House-sought special audit on CHEd--Quimbo

Published Sep 13, 2023 05:08 am

At A Glance

  • The Committee on Audit (COA) has committed to carry out a special audit of the Commission on Higher Education's (CHEd) funds, including the Higher Education Development Fund (HEDF), Marikina City 2nd district Rep. Stella Quimbo said.

Pump prime the economy -- solonMarikina City 2nd district Rep. Stella Quimbo

The Committee on Audit (COA) has committed to carry out a special audit of the Commission on Higher Education's (CHEd) funds, including the Higher Education Development Fund (HEDF).

This was bared by Marikina City 2nd district Rep. Stella Quimbo on Tuesday night, Sept. 12 during the House Committee on Appropriations' deliberation on the CHEd's 2024 budget. Quimbo is the committee's senior vice chairperson.

"Earlier there was a motion to request a special audit to be done by COA. I've already received an informal commitment from the chair of COA that they will undertake this as soon as possible," the lady solon said, referring to Chairman Gamaliel Cordoba.

Senior Deputy Minority Leader Northern Samar 1st district Rep. Paul Daza was the one who motioned for the House panel to make a request for COA to look into the CHEd's funds.

Quimbo also asked CHEd Chairman Popoy de Vera to produce a sworn statement relating to the agency's unutilized funds beginning 2018. "So your unutilized funds at the end of each year beginning 2018, including bank records," she said.

Tuesday was actually CHEd's second go-round with the appropriations panel; last week, the solons defered the budget discussion after being unsatisfied with the CHEd officials' answers to their questions.

"We're getting conflicting numbers. I think we're all frustrated with the situation. I don't think we've spent more time than CHEd than any other agency," Daza said during Tuesday's hearing.

A major concern--and source of confusion--of the House members is the exact amount of CHEd's payables to higher education institutions (HEIs), which the government has to shell out for.

Quimbo bared that two oversight hearings were carried out by the committee with CHEd even before this year's budget season began.

"Despite that, tuwing bumabalik po ang CHEd rito, napapansin po namin na paiba-iba ang numero pagdating especially dito sa utang ng CHEd sa ating HEIs (Whenever CHEd comes back to us, we notice that the numbers change especially when it comes to CHEd's debt to HEIs)," she said.

"Nag-umpisa tayo sa payables na halos isang bilyon lang, naging P6 billion. At nung Aug. 23 ang kabuuang payables to HEIs umabot ng P13 billion; sa private HEIs, P10 billion. Pero ngayon, ayon sa kanilang submisison, as bumaba sa P7.7 billion," added the economist solon.

(We started with payables of just nearly one billion, then it became P6 billion. On Aug. 23, the total payables to HEIs reached P13 billion; for private HEIs, P10 billion. But now, based on their submisison, the figure dropped to P7.7 billion.

De Vera said "Yes" when asked if would accept the proposed COA special audit.

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Commission on Higher Education commission on audit stella quimbo
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