THE government’s Small Business Wage Subsidy (SWBS) program was able to serve 3.1 million workers or 91 percent of the targeted 3.4 million during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Commission on Audit commended the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Social Security System (SSS) as program implementers for their decision to harness technology to speed up the process of providing assistance in the form of a two-month wage subsidy to workers of businesses affected by the lockdowns.
“Given the time constraints associated with its implementation, the program was able to distribute wage subsidies aggregating to P45.1 billion within three months out of the P51 billion budget. The program has served 3.1 million out of the target 3.4 million employees,” the COA said.
The payout was carried out from April 29 to May 15, 2020, for Tranche 1 and May 16 to 31, 2020, for Tranche 2.
Implementation, however, was not without the attendant challenges as auditors noted that out of the 1.768 million target beneficiaries in the non-essential business category (Category A), only 1.051 million benefited from the program.
Under this category were workers in non-food raw materials manufacturing, tobacco, airlines, construction, hotels and restaurants, rental or leasing, and entertainment.
The balance of 717,442 employees who were not reached was attributed to a lack of information dissemination and limited access to technology where application, registration, and remittance were made online.
“There were gaps and limitations noted in the online application system, particularly in data entry, verification process and payout process causing a delay in the processing and payment of wage subsidy,” the COA noted.
However, the distribution of subsidies to the quasi-essential businesses (Category B) exceeded the number of target beneficiaries by 412,077.
This category included workers in electronics manufacturing, public transport, cargo handling, banks, personal services, retail trade, and banks.
While correction procedures were undertaken to expand the program’s reach, the limited program timetable could not accommodate the additional applications for those with invalid Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) as well as those with incomplete or invalid information.
These resulted in 77,167 unclaimed payouts in remittance centers and 17,205 in submitted bank accounts.
Out of the failed payouts amounting to P6.7 billion, the COA confirmed the SBWS Program Task Force had already remitted P5.7 billion to the Bureau of Treasury.
