Monday, May 05, 2008
Owwa loses P70 million in pre-departure loans
THE Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) incurred an estimated P70 million losses in pre-departure loans extended to Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).
Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said this is the reason that Owwa decided to suspend the pre-departure loans due to non-payments.
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According to Roque, Owwa allocated P100 million for the pre-departure loans program; however, when the agency lent the P70 million and no payments were made from the borrowers, he decided to stop the program.
He added that Owwa also pursued the collections from the co-maker of the principal borrowers, but instead of getting the payment they heard that the OFWs will no longer pay the P40,000 loans since the agency already collected to them the US$25 membership fee on a per contract basis.
On the average, about 2,000 to 3,000 OFWs were being deployed daily, which means Owwa collected around US$75,000 or over P3 million daily.
While Roque admitted that it is stipulated in the Migrants Workers Act of 1995 that government, in particular Owwa, should allocate pre-departure funding for OFWs, the mere fact that it failed to recover the investment it infused for the program is enough basis to discontinue the project.
Roque also said Owwa gave OFWs and their co-maker one year to pay the loans and very minimal interest rates.
At the moment, Owwa, according to Roque is in the process of collecting and going after the borrowers to recover the P70 million investments they released for the pre-departure program.
On the other hand, despite the P70 million losses, Roque said Owwa's fund remains stable.
"Our cash flow is stable," he assured.
He said the current total asset of Owwa stands at P10.2 billion where P8.2 billion are in various investments and the rest are being used for workers' welfare assistance programs such as livelihood projects, scholarships, training and repatriation funds. (MSN/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Pampanga. (May 5, 2008 issue)
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