Compensation task force to miss deadline Moratorium on GOCC pay hikes, bonuses to end next week

Business World

A TASK FORCE created to review compensation at state-owned firms has asked for more time to complete its task, officials yesterday said.

The request came as a Palace-ordered suspension of allowances, bonuses, incentives and pay hikes at 178 government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions (GFIs) will expire next week.

"The deadline set in the EO (executive order) was Dec. 31 but we asked [President Benigno S. C. Aquino III] for a one-month extension," Civil Service Commission Chairman Francisco P. Duque III told BusinessWorld yesterday.

Mr. Aquino issued EO 7 last September in a bid to strengthen the supervision of GOCC/GFI-issued compensation, which he has criticized as excessive. Aside from setting a moratorium, the directive also created the Task Force on Corporate Compensation (TFCC) which was given 90 days to submit recommendations.

"We just had our first meeting last Monday (Dec. 20), but even before that there have been preparatory meetings done among technical working groups within [the member-agencies]," Mr. Duque, a TFCC member, said.

The Finance and Budget departments are also represented in the panel.

"It took a long while before GOCCs and GFIs could submit their salary and compensation documents, so we could not immediately meet. In fact, only 55 of them have submitted and we are still waiting for the others," Mr. Duque explained.

Last Tuesday, Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad told reporters that the TFCC had agree on a number of "considerations", among them the "peculiar" nature of GOCCs, the need to hire and keep "high-caliber" individuals; adhering to industry "best practices" and minimizing areas "vulnerable" to abuse.

Questions that should be asked, he added, include whether compensation should only be for appointed and elected officials, what forms should be allowed, and how to treat reimbursable expenses.

Mr. Abad said the TFCC would again convene next year and "try to discuss these issues further."

The task force, said Mr. Duque, will first focus on GOCC/GFI board members.

"Basically, in logic and essence, there will be similarities in how we approach ... other officials later on," he said.