COA orders Bohol provincial government refund excess bonuses

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines – The Commission on Audit required each employee and official of the Bohol provincial government to refund what it considered as excessive expense or overpayment of Productivity Enhancement Incentive of P20,000 granted to each of them.

“We recommend that management requires all officials to refund the overpayment of PEI for CY 2014 in excess of P5,000 each and henceforth observe strictly the limitations of the grant of PEI,” COA said, as it also ordered the Capitol to submit the legal basis for the PEI grant.

The provincial government in turn assured the COA that “in subsequent grant of cash benefits it shall be in accordance with rules and regulations. Cash benefits to job order employees shall be stopped.”

COA said in its reply to management’s assurance that it “is not precluded from granting benefits to its employees as long as it conforms to prescribed rules and regulations.” It also found that the PEI of P20,000 granted to each employee and official was deemed “excessive expenditures.”

COA noted that a total of 1,379 officials and employees of the Bohol Capitol were each given a PEI of P20,000 instead of P5,000, as allowed under Executive Order No. 80, “thus incurring excessive expenditures of P20.11 million.”

There had been similar findings of irregular disbursement or overpayment of PEI to the municipal governments’ workers in the province, COA added.

The basis of the COA ruling was EO 80, which provides that “the PEI, in the amount of P5,000 shall continually be granted across-the-board in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Department of Budget Management.”

COA further found that “cash assistance of P5,000 was granted to each job order employee of the province, which totaled P6,936,000 without legal basis, hence, considered irregular expenditure, as defined in COA Ciruclar 2012-003.”

Verification of the financial records of the province also showed the P5,000 cash assistance granted to each job order or casual employees was charged against Other Maintenance and Operating Expenses in the total amount of P6,936,000, COA said.

Contractual workers, such as in consultancy services, have no employer-employee relationship between them and the government, thus they are not entitled to benefits or bonuses, COA added. (FREEMAN)