Friday, October 03, 2008 Roperos: Waste of public funds By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
THERE was this report yesterday about a P110.6 million in computers and other multi-media equipment that were found by the Commission on Audit (COA) being left to rot, if not under-utilized. The equipment, it seems, were for the public schools in Central Visayas.
What the COA revealed could stagger the sensibilities of our taxpayers. It is an indication of how gravely the Department of Education (DepEd) has been remiss in the uses of public funds.
It seems that DepEd purchased communications and information technology equipment worth P667.95 million that, according to COA, were either defective or distributed to schools that were not strictly selected in accordance with the approved criteria, resulting in the wasteful storage or utilization the units.
That is not only the sin of the DepEd in the use of public funds. Elsewhere in this daily’s issue the other day is the report of books that have not been issued to the pupils and students of the region. That is books not put to good use.
And it was another thing that the text books that were commissioned to be written by a consortium of close friend-allies of higher echelon department executives were later found to be full of mistakes, not just typographically but also in content.
The books, I surmise, were either completely junked or forced upon the hapless school students, if only to make something of the tremendous expense the tax payers had to spend for, uselessly. Such a waste of public funds is unconscionable, especially to a country where every peso should count.
It seems some education officials are becoming a people playing it rich despite our country’s poverty. Many school heads are not only splurging on supplies and equipment, but even on so-called seminars. And yet, in many barangay schools in our countryside, public school teachers have to make do with lack of supplies and equipment.
In some instances, teachers spend their funds for something that our government should provide, and often the teachers have to reach out to the parents of their pupils or students to contribute the amount to buy the supplies or equipment.
I think our DepEd should trace carefully how those wastages in information and communication equipment and textbooks left to rot had come to pass.
We should pity the taxpaying public whose “hard-earned taxes” were spent ineffectively due to the gross irresponsibility of some of our public officials.
