CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Accounting Office will allow the 60 employees of the Management Information Computer Services (MICS) department to receive their Charter Day cash incentives, but with several conditions.
City Accountant Marietta L. Gumia told City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete that should the cash incentives be granted to these employees for humanitarian reasons despite the employees’ failure to qualify for the incentives based on the guidelines, her office must be free from any liability in case any aggrieved party questions the transaction.
The 60 employees of MICS failed to get at least a satisfactory rating in one of two rating periods required because their former head graded them poor before he was transferred to another office.
The poor rating for the period of July to December 2011 prevented them from receiving their P7,000 cash incentives which other employees received last February.
The cash incentive was granted to city hall employees for their participative efforts and contributions to the city’s 75 years of continuing and viable existence.
The accounting office believes that MICS personnel cannot receive their incentives since they were only able to get a satisfactory rate in the January to June rating period.
They got a poor rating in the July to December rating period.
Gumia said that the guidelines created by the Program on Awards and Incentives for Service Excellence (PRAISE) Committee, particularly Guideline No. 2, stated that an employee must have at least satisfactory ratings for the last rating periods.
The last rating periods are January to June and July to December 2011.
Because of the poor ratings in the July to December 2011 rating period, the employees attached instead the July to December 2010 performance rate, which Gumia said is non-compliant with the guidelines.
“If granted, this may be considered as precedent by other employees who had not received similar cash incentives for non-compliance of Performance Evaluation Sheets for the last two rating periods,” Gumia said.
To recall, the MICS personnel complained to the legal office that the poor grade they received from their former head was unfair.
Former MICS head William Artajo gave the said employees a poor rating while he rated himself very satisfactory.
The employees complained that Artajo’s rating of himself is questionable because he was tardy for 21 days within that rating period.
Artajo was transferred already to the City Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CCENRO) only this year. He graded the MICS personnel for their performance last July to December 2011 because he was still the head of MICS at that time.
Gumia said that if the incentives are to be granted to the employees for humanitarian reasons, her office must be free from any liability in case the transaction will be questioned later.
She said that her office must also be allowed to take the incentives up as accounts receivable from the MICS personnel.
She also wants the MICS personnel to post an undertaking duly notarized under oath that they will refund the amount in the event that the decision will not favor them. — (FREEMAN)