REQUIREMENTS for the re-organization plan of the City Agriculturist Office (CAO) and the City Health Office (CHO) are targeted to be accomplished by the Davao City Council's committee on appointments and reorganizations within this year.
Committee on appointments and reorganizations chairperson Councilor Rachel Zozobrado, speaking in Tuesday's Pulong-pulong ni Pulong (PPP) held at the City Council, said the purpose of the re-organization of the two offices is to add additional positions and personnel.
For CAO, Zozobrado said the re-organization is in line with Councilor Leonardo Avila III's proposal to add an agricultural engineer position in accordance to the national law for the city to acquire the benefits given by the Department of Agriculture.
"In a way, we re-organize the City Agriculturist Office because out of the 160 hectares of agricultural land here in Davao, we have 143 plantilla personnel so in every 979 hectares of agricultural land there is one plantilla personnel," she said.
Zozobrado said there are agricultural engineers currently employed in the CAO but are not occupying the appropriate positions because of its unavailability.
She said that those personnel are underpaid and are also not undergoing the trainings for their field which are helpful for the agricultural industry of the city.
The said proposal by Avila, according to Zozobrado, has been pending for almost two councils or seven years now.
For CHO, she said there was a proposal to add a medical technologist 3 position.
"When we talked to an official from the City Health Office, there is really a need for those positions kay kulang jud kaayo (because it's lacking). Out of the 182 barangays in three districts, there's only one medtech per district. Medtechs are important because of the Ebola scare and when we need their services isa ra ang mag-kara-kara (only one is available)," Zozobrado said.
She cited "budgetary constraints" as the reason for the delays of the re-organizations of the offices.
"In order to construct and create positions according to the HRMO (Human Resource Management Office), we need to comply with the requirements: the position should be in the occupational services provided in the local budget, the positions are vacant as per section 365 of our Local Government Code and it is within the limitation of 45 percent of the budget of the office," she said.
Zozobrado said they are currently in the middle of finishing all the needed requirements for the re-organization of the said offices.
She also said that there is also a proposal for a general re-organization of the city offices under the executive branch.
"According to the Human Resource Management Office, there are a lot of surplus and, at the same time, positions are lacking in different offices of the executive branch for implementation by the city mayor." (KGL)