Hataman says days of ‘ghost’ workers numbered

COTABATO CITY—The highest-ranking officer in charge of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has announced plans to put a stop to the bleeding of government coffers through padded payrolls and so-called ghost employees.

Mujiv Hataman, acting governor of ARMM, said the regional government would soon use a system called biometrics to prevent the payment of salaries to perennially absent workers and those that exist only on paper.

Through the biometrics system, employees’ attendance and payroll records would be accompanied by fingerprints and other means to ascertain identities of those collecting salaries from the government.

Hataman said the system would be foolproof since no two individuals share the same profile. Duplicate profiles cannot be stored in the biometrics system, he said.

He announced the plan saying he had seen the extent of the loss of funds that go to salaries of employees that do not exist.

In the region’s Department of Education (DepEd) alone, Hataman said documents provided to him gave a bird’s eye view of how serious the problem was.

He said the DepEd documents, such as payroll sheets, have names of teachers without addresses and schools of assignment.

The situation, he said, had been “deliberately perpetuated” in the past.

“I think this deeply rooted corruption does not only originate from one or two past administrations,” said Hataman.

“It’s a system that had been tolerated, deliberately made and has evolved into a larger system of graft,” the acting governor said.

He said the payroll system that some international donor agencies have helped put up was being tweaked to support the corrupt practices.

The software of the anticorruption systems had been found containing insufficient data and information, Hataman said.

He said he wanted to push for the biometric system, initially for employees of the office of the regional governor and then for the region’s almost 20,000 teachers.

Hataman said he was also considering establishing a databank system for ARMM.

He said he also directed ARMM agencies to be more transparent in their dealings by posting these on the web.

Agencies that have not established or maintained websites should have one for open governance and to achieve high standards of transparency and accountability of public funds, Hataman said. Inquirer Mindanao