ILOILO – Is the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) harboring “ghost” employees?
The Commission on Audit (COA) wants to find out. It has started an inventory of each Provincial Board members’ job order employees and contract of service workers.
The audit started on June 24 with COA checking the job hires of SP member Dorothy Paes, an ex-officio member being the federation president of the Liga ng mga Barangay in the province.
Yesterday, COA audited the job hires of SP member Angelia Bianca Requinto, also an ex-officio member being the federation president of the provincial Sangguniang Kabataan.
Today would be the turn of job hires of SP member Renee Valencia.
Here are the other audit schedules of SP members’ job hires:
* June 29 – SP member Marcelo Serag
* July 1 – SP members Rolito Calijig, June Mondejar, Matt Palabrica, Jason Gonzales, Rolando Distura, Domingo Oso
* July 2 – SP members Neilo Tupas, Carol Espinosa-Diaz, Ramon Sullano
Those of the SP Secretary would be on July 2, too.
The job hires of Vice Gov. Christine Garin as presiding officer of the SP would be audited on July 2 also, and so are those of the Office of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines – Iloilo chapter led by Mayor Rosario Mediatrix Fernandez of San Enrique town.
“We let the Commission on Audit do its job. Amo ina ang obra sang COA – ang mapasiguro nga husto ang use of funds,” said Defensor.
COA informed Defensor of the job hire inventory on June 23. The governor forwarded the letter to the SP. COA was also seeking pertinent documents.
“This pertains to the budget and human resource under the SP. Under our set up, the SP is a separate branch of the provincial government and the documents and concerned employees covered are under the offices of the SP,” said Defensor.
He welcomed the audit aspart of “the system of checks and balance…para nagakalaigu ang aton nga pagdumala.”
“Let the process take its course,” stressed Defensor.
In her letter to Defensor, COA’s Racel Cabantud, state auditor III and officer-in-charge of Audit Group E (Iloilo Province North), requested the physical presence of the job hires on the scheduled audit days.
COA, according to Cabantud, would validated their existence and interview them about “their actual functions being performed.”
This would be done at COA’s office, fourth floor of the Iloilo provincial capitol.
Cabantud asked that the job hires bring their Iloilo provincial government or voter’s identification card for easy reference, and for the SP Payroll and Human Resource Officer to furnish the audit team with a certified machine copy of the list of job hires and their respective payrolls between Dec. 31, 2019 and June 15, 2020.
SP members Mondejar and Palabrica welcomed the audit.
“Wala man sang problema. Kumpleto man ang tawo ko,” said Mondejar whose office has five job order employees and seven contract of service workers.
For his part, according to Palabrica, “Indi man ina issue because all of my employees are working for the people of the 3rd District.”
Palabrica’s office has five contract of service workers and five job order employees./PN
