CHED Chairman Dr. J. Prospero De Vera III said that the remaining P20.3 billion budget for Republic Act No. 10931 or the Free Higher Education law in 2018 has “been properly disbursed or obligated with utmost compliance to government rules and regulations.”
Earlier, the 2018 Commission on Audit report stated that the CHED has accumulated some P20.3 billion of unspent funds for Free College Education 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 .
However, De Vera noted that the alleged “underspending” and “low absorptive capacity” of CHED is the “result of budgeting and audit practices” that have been affecting the commission’s operations for the past years. Among these budgeting and audit practices, De Vera said, include the unsynchronized academic year and fiscal year. While the General Appropriations Act allocates funds on fiscal year basis , he noted that these funds are “reimbursed to universities and students on an academic year basis .” These include funds for the reimbursement of tuition and miscellaneous fees, research projects, and scholarships.
“The unsynchronized AY and FY makes it impossible for CHED to have 100 percent utilization by December 2018 since only the 1st semester of the AY is completed by December 2018,” De Vera said.
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