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Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Espinoza: Government appointees under scrutiny
By Fred C. Espinoza
SHAKE-UP AHEAD. The controversy over the stock rights offer of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has somehow spurred the Arroyo administration into action against getting into a similar situation that will effectively dilute the government’s holdings in the firm.
Besides the impending shake-up of government appointees in private firms, Malacañang is expected to pursue its plan to pare down their number as the government struggles to free up at least part of some P5.7 billion worth of subsidies spent on them every year.
In addition to the shake-up, the Arroyo administration is poised to issue an order outlining the qualifications, duties and responsibilities of government appointees in private corporations as well as government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs), a report said.
In the words of Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima, the administrative order will specifically outline the necessity and process of consulting with the National Government (NG) before critical decisions are made in companies wholly or partly owned by the government.
It turns out, however, that the administrative order has been waiting for finalization and final signature “since early 2004,” according to the finance secretary. This is perhaps one reason the finance secretary has avoided criticizing the government appointees, although he did not name SMC.
Nevertheless, the controversy may have done something good for this administration, which has yet to find a way to jumpstart the government’s bureaucratic streamlining program to be able to implement its P15-billion early retirement program that was supposed to have been in place last year.
There are signs that the administration is getting a little bit impatient over the delay in the passage of the priority tax measures, especially the increased value-added tax rate. But it would do well for the President to be more circumspect in this regard since the support of Congress is vital for the realization of the administration’s dream of a streamlined bureaucracy, as well as in resolving its problems with the GOCCs once and for all.
Over the last two years, GOCCs have absorbed at least P5.7-billion worth of government subsidies for various purposes under different laws and charters that created the corporations.
According to the Department of Budget and Management, the government’s objective is to rationalize these GOCCs and tag which ones are still necessary and which ones could be dissolved and liquidated or merged with other corporations.
“We realize that we cannot sustain this indefinitely,” said Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin earlier. “We want to find out how many GOCCs exactly we have and which ones could be dissolved and liquidated or merged with other corporations.”
Boncodin admitted that while the Arroyo administration could not complete the rationalization through purely administrative measures, there are immediate actions possible while waiting for Congress to take action.
With respect to the seven government appointees, the finance secretary has made it clear that he is not criticizing the decision but stressed that the seven appointees “did not go back to their principal, in this case, the National Government (NG), in order to consult and discuss the plan.”
“We don’t want this to keep happening,” Purisima said in the report.
Under the guidelines of the administrative order, Purisima said that, at the very least, “failure to secure specific marching orders from the NG on key corporate decisions could be cause for ouster from their positions.”
He said that if an appointee is considered unfit to take the position, then he should no longer be there. There should also be a way to measure their performance, he said.
(March 15, 2005 issue)
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