WHO says government jobs don’t pay well? Stories about extrajudicial killings have managed to bump off the news headlines about the scandalous revelation on the excessive pay and perks of some consultants of certain government agencies, which President Duterte himself exposed in a recent Malacañang event.
During a recent oath-taking of new government officials in Malacañang, the President told government agencies to “go slow” in hiring consultants, after discovering one office has hired four consultants who are paid P200,000 each.
They have bigger salaries than me, the President said, adding in jest that he should not have run for President but, instead, become a consultant.
Our sources say the lavish consultancy fees the President was referring to belong to the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA). The President reportedly discovered that SRA Administrator Anna Rosario Paner had hired several consultants, one of whom showed an hourly pay of P20,000 for a total of 60 hours. Indeed, a few days after the President’s speech, the SRA administrator resigned.
Our own research revealed equally astonishing consultancies. One SRA project, for instance, called “Gender and Development Mainstreaming Action Plan” had a lead expert who is paid P300,000, an expert assistant who is paid P200,000 and another assistant with a salary of P125,000.
Another project, called “Development of Strategies and Policies on the Functional transition of SRA Pursuant to the Mandates of Sida”, had a lead expert who is paid P360,000, an expert assistant with a P240,000 salary and two more assistants who are paid P180,000 each.
No wonder the President was pissed.
“We have experts in the government whom you can consult when [the] need arises. Avail yourself of their expertise, seek their assistance,” he told government officials. If the agency cannot avoid hiring consultants, he said they should “moderate” their salaries.
“Excessive fees cut into the budget. Be careful with public funds. It is not money that you are at liberty to spend at the people’s expense,” the President said.
We certainly hope these excessive consultancies could be looked into in a future congressional inquiry. Indeed, Congress ought to pass a law that limits what these government agencies and their officials could give themselves, their employees and consultants in terms of compensation and perks.
The President can also stop the practice. He can suspend the excessive and unwarranted pay and perks received by state-owned and -controlled entities, like the SRA. In fact, didn’t former President Benigno S. Aquino III already issued an executive order (EO) to that effect?
EO 24, which President Aquino signed in February 2011, is supposed to “address deep concerns on the excessive and unreasonable pay and perks received by board members and trustees of government-owned and -controlled corporations [GOCCs] and government financial institutions [GFIs].” Are consultants not covered by this EO? At a time when the Duterte administration will not be giving any substantial salary increases for government employees in the 2018 national budget and is, in fact, in the process of trimming the bureaucracy through the proposed Rightsizing the National Government Act, these overpaid consultants are unjustifiable.
What they get is more than 10 or 20 or even 50 times the average government worker’s wage. And for doing what work exactly? Can it be compared, for instance, to that of a public-school teacher who has to teach two shifts a day, and who practically works from daybreak to sundown? No public-school teacher has ever been paid P20,000 per hour.
Exactly what kind of formula is used to arrive at these consultants’ salaries and benefits? They could argue that they are not covered by the salary standardization law like other public servants. But what kind of standards do they adhere to?
These consultants do not work for top corporations that earn billions in profits. They are on the government payroll, working for government companies, getting paid people’s money. They must be held accountable for whatever compensation they get, every peso tied to individual levels of performance measurement. Indeed, we would like to see the same accountability applied to government workers at every level, be they tenured civil servants or consultants, and even if they work for supposedly autonomous GFIs and GOCCs who tend to abuse their autonomy.
There are many government workers, like teachers and health-care professionals, who are competent and dedicated and are doing actual “in the trenches” work, not just “consulting”. They are the ones who truly deserve to be paid much higher salaries.