Control Mechanisms for a 290 Million Dollar Loan Were Eliminated
<p style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">This is an agreement with the BID to improve educational quality. Most of the money goes to scholarships. The AGN says that because of cuts in program funding, the monitoring system was abolished in its entirety. As the initiative did not meet the implementation schedule, there was surplus to pay commitment fees over for over 400,000 dollars. </span></p> <div> </div>
A report by the Auditor General's Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) said that the control system of a 290 million dollar loan, for an educational program, was deleted in its entirety and that the Ministry of Education "did not establish alternative procedures" to oversee the management of the project.
The loan in question comes from the Interamerican Development Bank (BID) who is part of the funding for the program "Improving the Quality and Equity of Education," which has been underway since late 2003.
The AGN indicates that "all (program) components have seen their funding reduced (from) BID" and stipulates that the component which included tracking and monitoring of the initiative "completely abolished", estimated at 6.9 million. That is to say, that due to the cuts it was decided to remove the control over the execution of the plan, which represented 2.37% of the total money sent from the international credit agency.
The agreement with the Bank dated November 2003. After some modifications, the educational improvement program was implemented by the Ministry of Education on June 2004. This is an initiative that further aims to allocate scholarships among students at risk of dropping out. In fact, the subcomponent "support equity" scholarship takes "virtually all of the resources", says Audit, 220.7 million on a total 290 million, 76, 1%.
The AGN relates that to "encourage the retention, promotion, and completion of compulsory schooling," the improving program allocated 350,000 annual scholarships of between $400 and $600 per student, but then the number of beneficiaries increased to 500,000 children.
However, "the implementation of this action line reached 70% due to the complexity in its implementation," the report said, adding that the education portfolio "does not have systems, documents, criteria, and appropriate procedures to track efficient management and monitor their effectiveness.”
As an example, the auditors point out that "the module that had been specifically programmed was not implemented" to control the allocation of grants, and that "the source of information for the indicators consisted of an ad hoc system that was developed by the consultants." Also in the Project implementation a "baseline" is used to determine the socio-student status at the start of the plan, but the watchdog found that that line being used was drawn up "two years late.”
The report explains that the different school jurisdictions in the assembly of databases of scholarships, recorded "dissimilar" characteristics in terms of installed capacity, material, and human resources for efficient management.
On the other hand, the AGN concluded that the overall goals of educational improvement program "were not determined quantitatively." It is among the objectives of the plan to include "XX% decrease (SIC) of repetition rate; XX% increase (SIC) of retention and promotion; and increased by XX% (SIC) of the NER." Against this background, the audit asked the Ministry whether the percentages were specified and approved, but the response of the portfolio was negative.
Program execution should have end late last year. However, the watchdog said the original schedule was not met, and they should have requested an extension of six months: "As a result of such failure, excess commitment fees paid resulted in 19.8%," reports the AGN. In money, they had to pay “404,265.12 more, about $2,046,409. The report noted that these fees represent a surplus commitment "to increase public debt and is an indication of ineffective management."