Gov’t owes us P52-B, says GSIS head

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) said it has "discovered" some P52-billion worth of receivables from the National Government.

Government employees and pensioners have been in an uproar for the past few months because of delays in the payment of their monthly pension and the suspension of new salary loans that the GSIS earlier said was due to "glitches" in ITS computerization program.

GSIS chairman Winston Garcia said they discovered recently that they have a total of P52 billion in collectibles from the National Government and the latter’s failure to remit these amounts had created a gap between available funds and the payment of benefits to GSIS members.

Garcia said the receivables were discovered after the GSIS completed the computerization of its operations. He said they were also able to identify some P15- billion worth of loans in default that would have to be absorbed by the fund.

The NG receivables consisted of P30 billion from the National Government itself plus another P22 billion from the Department of Budget and Management. The amounts represent contributions of government agencies to the GSIS.

"The non-remittance of these amounts were discovered after the computerization," Garcia claimed.

Although the contributions of GSIS members were up to date and current, Garcia said the contributions of the government have not been remitted to the GSIS and this was what prevented the fund from meeting the pension payments to members and from extending new loans.

As of February this year, it was estimated that the DBM and other state agencies had to remit only P920 million to the GSIS for the Employees Compensation Program (ECP).

In line with this, the ECP approved to hike contributions to P100 per employee from the previous P30, which was the rate since 1978.

As early as 2001, the GSIS estimated that its fund deficiency would reach P25 billion.

The GSIS has been under sharp criticism for making huge investments in expensive acquisition of works of art with Garcia claiming that the fund had surplus funds of up to P20 billion.

Garcia said the COA report was erroneous. He added that the GSIS can afford to pay the benefit claims of its members for the next 50 years even without increasing premiums.