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Sunday, August 17, 2008
Temporary employees fill up 2 cities' payroll
CEBU CITY -- Mandaue City Vice Mayor Carlo Fortuna challenged the mayor to make good his promise to be transparent and show the council the list of all job-order employees.
He said this will quell reports that the city has "ghost employees."
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Fortuna pointed out that City Hall allocated P53 million from January to June to pay 1,900 job-order employees, including those in the hospital, public market and slaughterhouse.
But the council, which is being asked to allocate P35 million more in the supplemental budget for these employees, does not really know how many of them exist.
In Talisay City, about 820 job-order employees are required to submit daily time records and accomplishment reports to weed out any "ghost" workers, an official said.
The Commission on Audit, in 2006, questioned Talisay City's spending of P2.3 million a month on job-order employees, and said more funds would actually go to programs or services if their ranks were trimmed.
The Mandaue City Council now wants to see the official list of job-order employees, or at least their payroll and daily time records, said Fortuna.
The city administrator and the head of personnel, both identified with Mayor Jonas Cortes, reportedly gave different figures when asked how many of these workers City Hall has.
City Administrator Briccio Boholst said the mayor has nothing to hide. He said he will seek the mayor's permission to instruct the chief of the Human Resource Management Office, lawyer Eutiquio Sanchez, to provide the list.
Boholst said he is sure that all these employees are accounted for. His office is also concerned about the problem, but he assured that the supervisor of these workers certifies that they do exist and are working.
"Kung naay mamakak, malutsan ta, pero ma-pinpoint nato ang namakak (If someone tells a lie, that might create an irregularity, but we can immediately identify the culprit)," said Boholst.
Based on records submitted to the council, Fortuna said the City spends P8 million to P9 million a month on 1,900 job-order employees receiving P4,730 a month each.
That brings their spending to P53.9 million in just six months, almost as much as the P59.3 million set aside for Mandaue's Annual Investment Plan (AIP). The AIP, with its line-up of infrastructure projects, is meant to benefit most, if not all, of the city's 360,000 residents.
"It is very glaring that there are only a few people who show up during (City Hall) occasions," said Fortuna.
He added that apart from the 1,900 job-order employees, Sanchez earlier told Sun.Star Cebu that these employees are accounted for and that there are only 1,400 of them.
In Talisay's case, if the job-order employee fails to deliver requirements, they cannot get their salary, which was increased from P230 to P250 a day effective last July, said Emely Cabrera, head of the City Human Resource Management Office (CHRM).
They work for 15 days to a maximum of six months.
Of the 820 workers, 60 percent are assigned to various offices at City Hall, while the rest man the traffic, clean streets, collect garbage, or work in the market and slaughterhouse.
Their immediate superiors, the department heads and supervisors, closely monitor their attendance and daily performance, Cabrera said.
The City Hall's civil security unit also assists the officials by conducting random check-up in the offices, in the public market, slaughterhouse, at the Talisay City College and in parks and plazas.
Cabrera said job-order employees are also required to attend the regular flag-raising ceremony in City Hall's front yard, under an executive order Mayor Socrates Fernandez issued in 2007.
She said job-order employees are required to submit a written explanation within 72 hours should they fail to attend the flag-raising ceremony.
"With all these measures, it's impossible for these so-called ghost employees to work here. We can detect them, even their shadows," Cabrera added. (OCP/GC of Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos. (August 17, 2008 issue)
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