For helping him out in his first 100 days: Rama to give P10, 000 bonus to CH employees

CEBU, Philippines – For allegedly making his first 100 days in office a success, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is planning to reward each city hall employees by granting them additional P10,000 bonus.

Rama has included P50 million in the proposed P1.26 billion Supplemental Budget No. 5 to defray the additional bonus of the 5,000 regular and casual employees of the city.

The Mayor said he was able to achieve 99 percent of his goal because of the cooperation of the city hall employees. Rama said that city hall employees deserve incentives as all of them worked hard to achieve the goals of the administration.

The bonus will be on top of the regular yearend bonus or the 13th month pay.

In 2008, when Rama was acting mayor, he also proposed a performance bonus of similar amount to encourage them to be more productive. During the time, Rama tried to find a source, however, 2008 and 2009 have passed, but the promised benefit did not materialize.

Some employees, back then, also preferred that their P12, 000 Additional Compensation Allowance be given instead since it is bigger.

Aside from the bonus, other items in the SB 5 include the P21.325 million to pay for its loan for the South Road Properties, P30 million for the city's hospitalization and medical assistance program, P100 million for asphalting, P100 million for road concreting, P30 million for drainage and P100 million for the fencing, rehabilitation and improvement of schools within the city.

There is also the P44 million aid to barangays for the construction of day-care centers, honorarium of tanods, garbage collection in the barangays, allowance of Lupon members, among others.

Some P41 million will be appropriated for the city's electric consumption for the rest of the year. To provide electricity to upland barangays, the city will be appropriating P10 million for electrification.

The rice subsidy and uniform allowance for barangay workers might get P8 million and P17 million respectively.

Some P20.5 million shall be included for the phase 2 of the rehabilitation of Fort San Pedro and Plaza Independencia.

Rama is having a comprehensive program to solve the city's problem with night dwellers. To do this, he will be appropriating and initial P5 million for the implementation of the project.

SB 5 shall also include the P18.5 million election reserve fund requested by the Commission on Elections for the coming barangay and SK elections and the P50 million to purchase heavy equipments for the operation of the engineering department.

SB 5 is expected to be discussed during Friday's regular council session. (FREEMAN)