Investigation of ‘ghost’ employees ordered
MODERN-DAY PAYROLL PADDING RACKET
BETTER old than corrupt. So it’s back to the antiquated system of salary payments for some employees of the Dagupan City hall after Mayor Belen Fernandez recently discovered that the modern-day system of payment through bank ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) is being used to cover for graft and corrupt practices.
An emergency worker (EW) – whose identity is being withheld pending completion of the investigation – of the past administration under former Mayor Benjamin Lim surfaced last week to be confronted by Fernandez about her appointment as EW and her monthly salary.
The unnamed EW promptly denied that she reported to work despite a work contract that she was made to sign because she was never told to report to work contrary to what documents indicate.
She also denied having received a single centavo as salary since January this year.
Upon verification with the Human Resources and Management Officer, documents show that the EW concerned, indeed, had a work contract she signed and kept at the HR office.
However, the EW disowned the signatures appearing in her supposed daily time record and accomplishment report attested to by a “Pedro Philip Soria III, Executive assistant III,” submitted to and filed at the HRMO.
Land Bank records, meanwhile, indicate that the wages of the EW were remitted to the bank and withdrawn using her card.
She told the mayor that an official at city hall whom she did not identify, recruited her then made her sign a working contract and asked her to open an ATM account at the Land Bank of the Philippines and convinced her to entrust the card to him, including the PIN number to access the account.
RACKET
Fernandez said the discovery points to a possible payroll-padding racket involving hundreds of unwitting persons listed as EWs.
She said she will pursue an expanded audit to determine who the legitimate EWs are and deserve to be paid their last month salaries that the city government owes them.
“We will weed out the both “ghost” and “15-30” employees and begin paying only the EWs who provided service to the city,” Fernandez told The PUNCH.
City hall observers believe that the discovered scheme had been used also in the case of claims for overtime pay. So far, P8.2 million have been recorded as overtime pay of city hall employees and only P1.2 million remain unpaid.
Consequently, the mayor decided to revert to the old payroll system wherein the employee comes to the city hall and personally signs the payroll as proof of his or her receipt of wages to curb the payroll racket in the city hall.
The mayor said while the old practice is more laborious, it is more transparent and eliminates suspicion of so-called “15-30” employees in the city government who only come during paydays but never performed a single day of work.
INVESTIGATION
At the same time, she ordered department heads to review and authenticate the listed EWs in their departments and warned them that they will be held accountable for any deliberate intent to cover-up for “ghost” EWs.
There were 916 EWs and technical consultants under the Lim administration who were drawing a total monthly salary of P6.9 million from the city government through the ATM system.
The appointments of most of these EWs were not renewed by the new city administration under Fernandez for lack of funds.
However, some of the terminated EWs continue to report to work in the hope of being eventually hired again.
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