CHIZ: SENATE FINANCE PANEL TO REVIEW
BUDGET FOR MONITORING OF GOV'T SPENDING

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.