Olivarez vows to weed out ghost employees

MANILA, Philippines —  The Parañaque government will go after suspected ghost employees after noticing inconsistencies in the records of city hall personnel, Mayor Eric Olivarez declared over the weekend.

Olivarez said he ordered city administrator Voltaire de la Cruz to assess city hall employees based on records from the different departments, including the Human Resource Management Office and City Budget Office.

The city government employed more than 8,000 personnel when Olivarez took over as mayor in July last year.

He said the number has been reduced to 7,600, but a final tally has yet to be submitted to him.

“After we ordered the departments to submit the list of their employees who are physically working, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of personnel who voluntarily dropped from the rolls,” Olivarez said.

“It turned out that there were discrepancies so I ordered an investigation to find out the truth,” he added.

Olivarez said the review committee would ensure that the resources supposedly for the salaries of ghost employees could be allocated to programs and services benefiting the residents.

After representing Parañaque’s first district in the House of Representatives for three full terms, Olivarez switched posts with his older brother Edwin.