City’s fees for 2,000 people late

THE payloader operators, tanods and lupon in the 80 barangays of Cebu City failed to receive their honoraria from the City Government.

The honorarium that City Hall has yet to release covers the services rendered in December last year and January this year.

The delay affected almost 2,000 barangay workers—1,600 barangay tanods and lupon workers and some 400 payloader operators.

Every month, the City gives P5,000 to barangay payloader operators, P2,000 to barangay tanods, and P2,000 to the members of the Lupong Tagapamayapa, a mediation body.

Starting this year, though, the amount supposed to be received by the tanods and lupon members has been doubled to P4,000 by Mayor Michael Rama.

The amount serves as the City’s counterpart to the monthly honorarium given by the barangay to these barangay workers. The City gives a counterpart to make up for the lack of funds in the villages.

Those in the mountain barangays reportedly can only give P100 to P500 per month to their payloader operators, tanods and lupon workers. Those in the urban barangays, on the other hand, give P1,000 to P2,000 to their workers, depending on the size of their villages.

In an interview yesterday, City Accountant Diwa Cuevas said there was a delay in the release of the honorarium because there was also a delay in obligating the funds for these expenses.

Cuevas admitted that this is the first time there was a delay in the release of the honorarium for these workers.

However, Cuevas assured that the December honorarium will be released within the month. After that, she said the honorarium for January will immediately be processed so it will be released soon.

Meanwhile, Cuevas said she doesn’t know yet if half of the P20,000 Christmas bonus promised by Rama in December to all City Hall employees will be given this year.

The other P10,000 was already released days before Christmas last year.

Cuevas said there were no funds appropriated for the increases in bonuses in the City’s P5.19-billion budget for 2013.

However, Cuevas said the matter can be covered by a supplemental budget, provided fund sources are found.

The City released only P10,000 each last year so they would not exceed the 45 percent limit set for allocations covering personnel services.

“But the mayor really wanted the amount to be given this year. That is his stand,” she said.