COA questions Mandaluyong’s hiring of 371 ‘casuals’

Mandaluyong City councilors tapped 371 casual employees last year with a payroll of P42.86 million but failed to provide proof of their employment or even services rendered.

In its 2012 audit of the Mandaluyong government released last week, the Commission on Audit (COA) said the city’s human resources management department (HRMD) head said her office had no idea that the names of the casual employees did not appear in their central information system.

“She explained that department or office heads unknowingly failed to submit individual data sheet of their recruits to HRMD, other than letters of recommendation to hire them, since most of them were walk-in hires for special projects on a need basis,” the COA report said.

It also noted that the money for the contractual employees’ salaries came from the “budgeted amount for maintenance and other operating expenses of 14 departments/offices of the city” as Mandaluyong’s 2012 budget may not have included a “reasonable estimate” of the operating requirements of the city council, prompting it to look for funding from other departments.

“This [hiring] setup was done upon the verbal representation of the Chairman, Committee on Appropriations to augment the manpower requirements of the Sangguniang Panlungsod members,” the COA said.

Although the HRMD was required by law to maintain a centralized record of personnel and the payroll of all employees and officials of the city government, the COA said the HRMD had only copies of the plantilla of contractual hiring approved by Mayor Benhur Abalos to show that these individuals indeed worked for city hall.

It added that members of the city council were also of no help as they merely submitted certifications indicating that they hired these contractual personnel who were under their direct supervision, including daily monitoring and periodic performance evaluation.

The COA said the HRMD should provide a complete record of these temporary hires “to confirm the physical attendance that would prove the regularity of payments made.”

Also, it suggested that the city council come up with “a reasonable estimate of its operating expense” in next year’s budget.

Sought for comment, an official said the city government had started to address the points raised by COA.

In fact, Jimmy Isidro, the city’s public information officer, said the mayor had already instructed the city council to provide the HRMD unit with a list of the names of employees so that these could be included in a centralized system.

He said that under a COA memorandum, the city government has six months to comply with everything.

“We’re working on it already,” Isidro said, reiterating that nowhere in the report did it say there were ghost employees in the city. With Kristine Felisse Mangunay