Osmeña cancels allowances for some City Hall workers

AFTER his plan of shutting down some special bodies in City Hall, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña canceled all the honoraria for transportation and communication allowances of employees and appointees who belonged to these offices.

In a memorandum dated July 1, Osmeña said all of their honorarium, which will cover the transportation and communication allowances, will be cut effective immediately.

They can only avail themselves of the honorarium if they get permission from the mayor.

“You are hereby informed that your honoraria and allowances for transportation or/and communications are canceled effective immediately. Henceforth, you can no longer avail of these honoraria and allowances from the City Government without my written consent or authority,” read the memo.

In an interview, Osmeña said he will stop the release of these honoraria until after he is done with the evaluation of items that need to be funded.

Osmeña has been reviewing expenses in the City Government to identify those that are not necessary.

The City is providing P8,500 for each department head for their transportation allowance and P4,000 for their communication allowance.

For assistant department heads, each gets P7,500 for transportation and P3,000 for communication.

Since he assumed office, Osmeña has been finding ways to decrease the City expenses by cutting those that are not essential and important.

“Daghan kaayo mga expenses sa City Hall akong gi-review kay daghan sad kaayong mga anomaliya sa City Hall (There are lots of expenses in City Hall and I am reviewing these because there are also lots of anomalies in City Hall,” he said.

Some reports that reached Osmeña indicated that there are department heads who are reportedly receiving transportation allowance even if they have City-issued vehicles.

Earlier, Osmeña announced that he will be closing some offices and special bodies if they can’t justify their functions.

City Hall has at least 90 offices and special bodies that are being evaluated.

The mayor required members of these special bodies to submit their accomplishment reports and minutes of the meetings to prove they are doing their jobs.