Treasury targets govt-wide ‘Central Payroll System’ in 3-6 yrs

The Aquino administration plans to complete within three to six years the implementation of a Central Payroll System, starting with national government agencies, according to National Treasurer Roberto Tan. “That’s a road map we are trying to study. We will study how we will do it. It will be a three to six-year program," Tan said on Monday. He said the aim is to put under a single account in the National Treasury all the payrolls of government workers as part of efforts to lessen bureaucratic corruption and cut the red tape. Budget Secretary Florencio Abad was the first to announce the proposed Central Payroll System where salaries of government employees will no longer go through their respective agencies. Instead, the National Treasury will centrally manage and deposit state workers’ salaries in bank accounts for them. Tan said government agencies would have to study first their “staffing requirements" while the Treasury sees how to improve the operations of its offices nationwide in anticipation of managing the payroll of government’s entire bureaucracy. He said the new system also hopes to address the perennial problem of non-remittance of contributions to the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the state-owned pension fund for public employees. He recalled the time when government agencies had failed to remit to the GSIS their contributions at a staggering sum of P9 billion, plus P15 billion in penalties. Tan said the Treasury would start with the payroll of all national government agencies first before expanding the system’s coverage to handle the payroll of government-owned and -controlled corporations and government financial institutions. — MRT/VS, GMA News