Incoming NEDA chief eyes lean bureaucracy

Ernesto Pernia, the incoming economic planning secretary and National Economic and Development Authority director general, wants the Duterte administration to convert the bloated bureaucracy into a lean workforce.

“That will be more economical in the long run, instead of keeping them there and they are not really productive,” he said.

Pernia said the next admin- istration should streamline the government and retrench nonessential and excess personnel and offer incentives to those who want to retire.

The government workforce has grown from fewer than one million during the time of President Corazon Aquino to the current more than 1.5 million.

Appropriations for salaries for state workers make up nearly a third of the national budget.

Taxpayers shell out about P2.2 billion a day to pay public servants.

The amount does not include the funding requirement for the recent across-the-board salary increase ordered by President Aquino under Executive Order 201.

The adjustment has prompted many government officials and employees to postpone retirement plans.

For those holding Salary Grades 24 and higher, their basic pay will increase by 100300 percent when the four-year salary adjustment program has been fully implemented.

Salary Grade 24 is the pay level of a division head. It provides for a basic salary ranging from P56,610 to P61,679, depending on the officer’s length of service.

By year four of the program, a Salary Grade 24 holder will receive from P83,406 to P93,415.

The increases for bureau directors, assistant secretaries, undersecretaries, secretaries, justices of the Supreme Court and lower courts, those with equivalent rank, lawmakers, vice president and the president will be even bigger.

For instance, the basic salary of an undersecretary now ranges from P96,354 to P104,984.

By the fourth year or in 2019, this will go up to P175,185 to P196,206.

The salary of a secretary will jump from P117,086-P128,278 to P257,809-P295,191.

The monthly pay of the vice president, Senate president, speaker of the House of Representatives and Supreme Court chief justice will go up from P135,376- P148,478 to P307,365-P353,470.

On the other hand, the president’s monthly salary will increase from P160,924 to P399,739.