COA reminds LGUs: No gifts, bonuses to job order workers

CEBU, Philippines - The Commission on Audit has warned local government units not to grant cash gifts, year-end bonuses and productivity enhancement incentives to job order personnel as the disbursement of public funds for the said purposes are illegal.

 COA cited Section 4 of the Budget Circular 2010 – 1 which enumerates the exclusions from the coverage in the rules and regulations on the payment of cash gifts and year-end bonus the government personnel hired without employee-employer relationships and funded from non-personal services appropriations or budgets.

 Also excluded are individuals or groups of people whose services are engaged through job orders, contracts of services or other similarly situated.

 Item 5 of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) Memorandum Circular No. (MC) No. 38, s. 1993, also states that, “contract of services and job orders are different from contractual appointment and plantilla appointment of casual employees, respectively, which are required to be submitted to CSC for approval.”

 Contracts of services and job orders cover lump sum work or services such as janitorial, security or consultancy services where no employer-employee relationship exists.

 COA said the job order covers piece works or intermittent jobs of short durations not exceeding six months, on a daily basis.

 It said that contracts of services and job orders are not covered by the Civil Service Law and rules and regulations, but are covered by COA rules.

 The employees involved in the contracts or job orders do not enjoy the benefits of regular government employees.

 It further said that the services rendered under contracts of services and job orders are not considered government services.

 In its 2013 audit report, COA found that the Municipality of Balamban granted cash gifts, year-end bonuses and productivity enhancement bonuses of P10,000; P17,700 and P40,000, respectively.

 The municipal accountant told COA that these job orders were given a contract of one year assigned as barangay bookkeepers and part of the stipulation in the contract was the granting of the cash gift and year-end bonus. The funding source of the salaries and benefits of these job orders were the contributions of the barangays for hiring them.

 It was further learned that the position of the barangay bookkeepers was given to the job orders that are not under the Plantilla.

 “The absence of an approved plantilla contractual appointment shows that there was no employer-employee relationship between the LGU and the concerned personnel, hence they are not entitled to the benefits enjoyed by government employees,” COA said.

 It added that although the grant of the said benefits was embodied in the contract of service, the contract was executed without legal basis because the persons they hired are on the job order basis, thus there is no employer-employee relationship.

 COA recommended the municipality to immediately stop the granting of cash gifts and year-end bonuses to job order personnel to avoid personal liability for illegal disbursements and require the refund of disbursed funds totaling to P67,700. — (FREEMAN)