Pricewaterhouse draft findings on PNM scholarship ‘slush - TopicsExpress



          

Pricewaterhouse draft findings on PNM scholarship ‘slush fund’: Lack of transparency, accountability. Sources said among the concerns raised by PwC is the lack of transparency and accountability in the awarding of the scholarships. The forensic firm was commissioned to investigate the controversial Community Development Scholarship Programme (CDSP), now renamed the Financial Assistance Studies Programme (FASP), operated by the Ministry of Community Development and Gender Affairs, under then minister Joan Yuille-Williams. Last year, during the budget debate, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told the Parliament the procedure used by the PNM regime in awarding the scholarships was “shameless, rampant discrimination.” The programme was also described as a “slush fund” which assisted supporters of the PNM. The scholarship programme was established in 2003 with an annual $45 million budgetary allocation. The PwC started its review on May 25 and by August 24 field work was completed, leaving only outstanding interviews to be done. On September 7, a draft report was completed. In addressing the matter last year, Persad-Bissessar had said the issue was referred to the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions. She took the action following a report by the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC), that there was discrimination in the award of the scholarships. The findings A copy of the draft report obtained by Sunday Guardian revealed that although records indicate $49.9 million was disbursed over the review period (2003-2007) “a portion of these disbursements did not actually reach the beneficiary and was not returned to the programme due to a lack of proper monitoring, communication, timelines of the processing of applications, and overall controls.” • The report stated that on several occasions funds were disbursed to overseas institutions for tuition payment and the student was not registered. In that case, the funds were returned to the treasury but not to the ministry and was effectively “lost,” as “they remained in the Consolidated Fund as a suspense item.”
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 02:53:48 +0000

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