Gov’t workers who did good may get bonuses

FROM SCI-TECH TO SCARCITY Employees of the Department of Science and Technology hold a lunch-break assembly at the agency’s central office in Taguig City on Friday to protest recent cuts in their employee benefits. ARNOLD ALMACEN

Beginning June 1, government employees could be receiving performance bonuses equivalent to either a month’s basic salary or P5,000.

But the “performance enhancement incentive” will depend on whether a particular agency has met its targets, according to President Benigno Aquino III’s Executive Order No. 181, issued last Friday.

The President authorized government agencies to release the bonuses no earlier than June 1.

Besides national government agencies, including state universities and colleges (SUCs), the order also covers Congress, the judiciary, Civil Service Commission, Commission on Audit, Commission on Elections and the Office of the Ombudsman.

It includes government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs), local water districts, government financial institutions and local government units.

The President on Wednesday hinted at a monetary reward for GOCCs, 49 of which remitted a total of P36.857 billion to the national treasury from their 2014 earnings.

Surprise

“I have a surprise for our fellow workers in government,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said on Saturday over state radio before releasing a copy of EO 181 to Malacañang reporters.

The EO implements the provisions in the 2015 national budget on the grant of performance bonuses to government workers.

Excluded from the bonus are “consultants and experts hired to perform specific activities or services with expected outputs, laborers hired through job contracts and those paid on piecework basis.”

The bonuses also do not cover “student laborers and apprentices” and “individuals and groups whose services are engaged through job orders, contracts of services or others similarly situated.”

Transparency seal

To qualify for the bonus, national government agencies, including SUCs, must have achieved “at least 90 percent of the 2014 targets under at least two performance indicators (quantity, quality or timeliness) for at least one major final output.”

The EO also requires compliance with the “posting of the transparency seal” and the “posting or publication of the Citizen’s Charter or its equivalent as required under the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007.”

Government firms monitored by the Governance Commission for GOCCs could also be evaluated based on targets spelled out in a “performance scorecard.”