MARIKINA 2nd District Representative Stella Luz Quimbo has filed a resolution asking the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation on the financial management and operations of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

Quimbo filed House Resolution 2279 that seeks to shed light on the inefficiencies, fund under-utilization and misreporting of financial data of TESDA which was uncovered in the 2022 National Budget deliberations.

Quimbo noted that TESDA has unutilized funds amounting to P4.2 billion as of December 31, 2020 based on the agency’s statement of allotment, obligation and balances for 2020.

The lawmaker added that for 2021, the total annual allotment for TESDA increased to P15.3 billion, P9.2 billion or 60 percent of which remained unobligated as of June 30, 2021.

The Commission on Audit also flagged the accumulation of unutilized and idle TESDA funds amounting to P5.21 billion allegedly since the conduct of face-to-face training and assessment was not possible during Covid19 pandemic.

Quimbo also questioned TESDA’s participation in the technical vocational education market by running and operating its own training schools which compete with privately owned technical vocational institutions.

“By TESDA’s participation in the technical vocational education market, a conflict of interest arises because the agency approves scholarship grants to provide technical vocational institutions and to Technical Training Institutes  which it owns and operates,” she said in her resolution.