THE SUSPENSION of allowances, bonuses and incentives at state-owned firms will be extended for a month after a deadline passed last Dec. 31, a Malacañang official said.
“We will be extending it for a month. There will be a new EO (executive order),” Executive Secretary Paquito “Jojo” Ochoa said in an interview late last week.
The directive, which according to Mr. Ochoa should have been issued last Thursday, updates EO 7 issued last September by President Benigno S. C. Aquino III. The earlier EO mandated the suspension of all compensation perks at 158 government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) and financial institutions (GFIs) until the end of 2010.
EO 7 also created the Task Force on Corporate Compensation (TFCC), to be manned by representatives of the Office of the President, the Budget and Finance departments, and the Civil Service Commission, which will review remuneration granted to GOCC/GFI directors, officers and rank-and-file employees.
The panel late last month sought a one-month extension to submit its recommendations.
Commenting on Malacañang’s approval, TFCC member Civil Service Commission Chairman Francisco P. Duque III said, “The extension will firm up the polices and some of the hanging issues that we hope to resolve.”
The issues, Mr. Duque explained, include the setting of compensation benchmarks as “there is no one size fits all”; the classification of GOCCs as very large, large, medium or small; the definition and scope of compensation; and the gathering of data from the state-owned companies.
He also said the task force needed more time to review the compensation granted to officers outside GOCC and GFI boards.
“We need four months to resolve that,” Mr. Duque said.
Mr. Aquino, in his first State of the Nation address last July, claimed that GOCC and GFI officials, particularly those at the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, were enjoying fat bonuses even as the perennially cash-strapped government was struggling with a record budget shortfall. — Ana Mae G. Roa, BUsinessworld
#WearMask #WashHands
#Distancing
#TakePicturesVideos
