COA Says TESDA Spent DAP Funds on ‘Ghost Trainees’

The Commission on Audit (COA) said there are irregularities over TESDA’s use of its funds coming from the administration’s
controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) whose parts has been struck down as unconstitutional by the High court last week, report said.

COA found out that the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) may have used some of the P1.1 billion of its DAP funds to finance non-existent or ‘ghost scholars’ in 2011, GMA news online reported.

The online news has quoted COA report where it said that it was impossible for the scholars to attend at the same time in several training programs on overlapping dates.

“Sixty-one attended multiple training courses which were held simultaneously… It was impossible for these scholars to be present at the same time in several training programs held on overlapping dates,” the report said. “Forty-six confirmed that they have never attended the subject training course while one could not remember the training program,” it added.

The report also said 218 scholars could not be reached through their stated contact numbers.

Joel Villanueva, TESDA director general, blamed the “ghost scholars” to their accredited schools saying they had already shut these schools down. Villanueva added that as to the 46 other scholars who said they had not attended a TESDA course, it may be possible that they are not aware that it was the agency which funded their training and only recognize the accredited school they are enrolled in.

For the 200 other scholars who cannot be reached, Villanueva said they may now be working abroad or have changed numbers, Gma news online reported.

The auditing agency also revealed that at least P109 million from the P1.1 billion DAP funds received by TESDA in 2011 was left unutilized.

Source: GMA News Online