Commission on Higher Education chief J. Prospero de Vera III on Thursday said the commission disbursed the remaining P20.3-billion budget for free college education with “utmost compliance” with government rules and regulations.
The 2018 Commission on Audit annual audit report recently showed the CHED was unable to spend funds due to delays in the approval of guidelines for the law, non-submission of billing statements of state universities and colleges and local universities and colleges, delays in the release of the Tertiary Education Subsidy, and in the implementation of the Student Loan Program.
“The alleged underspending and low absorptive capacity of CHED is the result of budgeting and audit practices that has been affecting CHED operations for the past years,” De Vera said.
One of the major factors that led to the delayed use of the fund is the unsynchronized academic year (AY) and fiscal year (FY), de Vera said.
“While the General Appropriations Act (GAA) allocates funds on FY basis (January-December), these funds are reimbursed to universities and students on an AY basis (June-May and August-July). These include funds for the reimbursement of tuition and miscellaneous fees, research projects, and scholarships,” he added.
Citing that Republic Act 10931 requires SUCs and LUCs to claim the reimbursement of their tuition and miscellaneous fees from CHED with supporting documents, de Vera said the commission cannot download these funds directly to them if there are no claims.
