San Vicente Mayor Amy R. Alvarez today, September 8, appealed again for the return of the contracts of about 60 Contract of Service (COS) and Job Order (JO) workers of the Municipal Economic Enterprise and Development Office (MEEDO).
This is due to the re-postponement of the Sangguniang Bayan (SB) yesterday, September 7 in the passage of the Mayor’s proposal on Supplemental Budget No. 08-2021 which was further endorsed last week.
In her letter, Mayor Alvarez pointed out that the SBO’s approval of P28.2-M in the said Supplemental Budget will ensure continued service of MEEDO employees.
This fund is intended for the remuneration of employees serving in MEEDO until December 2021 and also includes programs required in response to the prevention of the pandemic threat caused by COVID-19.
According to Mayor Alvarez, she was disappointed with the lack of action by the SB members who seemed to ignore his proposed funding proposal.
“Napakahalaga ng trabahong ginagampanan ng ating mga manggagawa sa MEEDO lalo sa serbisyo sa tubig para sa mga kabahayan. Kaya sana aksyunan na ito ng Sanggunian upang may mapagkunan tayo ng pondo para sa kanilang mga sweldo,” Alvarez said.
The Chief Executive added that the funds will be insufficient for their remuneration if the SB does not approve such a supplementary budget.
It will be recalled that on July 30, Mayor Alvarez passed Supplemental Budget No. 06 worth more than ₱71 Million to the SBO which contained the fund for the salaries of MEEDO workers.
The Mayor expressed that, only a few programs and projects in the said supplementary budget were approved by the Sangguniang Bayan after it passed Appropriations Ordinance No. 18-2021.
For unexplained reasons, the SB did not include in the said ordinance the additional funding for MEEDO workers amounting to more than ₱2.5 Million.
She added that the “supplementary budget no. 06-A” created by SBO cannot be a subject of a valid appropriation ordinance because according to Alvarez, it violates the Local Government Code which states that the supplemental budget should come only from the Local Chief Executive.
Meanwhile, some of the contents of the endorsed SB No. 08 funds include the the purchase of additional Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kits, salaries for COVID-19 marshals and contact tracers, promotion of livelihood programs and distribution of rice to residents to help now with the pandemic.