Chiz: Senate finance
panel to review budget for monitoring of government spending
By Office of Senator Chiz
Escudero
October 23, 2014
PASAY CITY – The Senate
Committee on Finance will scrutinize the multibillion proposed
allocation for monitoring and evaluation of government spending, which
eats up a big chunk of the proposed spending package of the
government.
Sen. Chiz Escudero, chairman of the Senate finance panel, said he
finds most of the monitoring budgets and cost of service of many
agencies too steep, like in the case of the Department of Social
Welfare and Development (DSWD) which allocated P4.2 billion to
implement, monitor and evaluate its project under the conditional cash
transfer (CCT) program.
The welfare department is seeking a P108-billion spending package for
2015, of which P64.7 billion is for CCT. Of this amount, P57.1 billion
will go to actual cash transfer, P3.3 billion to personnel services
and P4.2 billion to implement and monitor the DSWD’s cash dole out
program.
Escudero, however, said money set aside for “monitoring and
evaluation” is too expensive.
“I totally agree that there is an implementation cost needed to
actuate a program. And yes, we need to monitor the implementation of
our programs and projects to ensure accountability and judicious use
of public funds, but it should not be that expensive.” Escudero
pointed out. “Our government already has an existing machinery and
mechanism to precisely do that. We have the Commission on Audit, why
do we need this redundancy of functions?”
The senator said the P4 billion proposed allocation for monitoring
budget can be used for other serviceable purposes that have actual and
direct benefits. “I see it as a lost fiscal space. This amount can be
put to better use. We can reduce it and add the amount to major
programs.”
According to Escudero, the funds can be used instead to finance
disaster preparedness and relief operations, and to purchase relief
goods with longer shelf life.
Last month, Escudero also quizzed the Department of the Interior and
Local Government (DILG) for the P840 million it plans to earmark for
monitoring and evaluation of its program under grassroots
participatory budgeting process or the GPBP amounting to P5.7 billion,
and sought a detailed breakdown of its projects and programs in all
1,600 local government units across the country.
“The finance committee is seriously looking into these items in the
budget and we are carefully studying initiatives to introduce sensible
spending in all levels. We want to allocate our scarce resources and
equitably and fairly utilize these for significant purposes,” the
senator added.