Former Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III on Thursday, July 14 said the Duterte administration was not interested in pushing through with proposals to rightsize government operations.
Sotto said he had filed a bill in the 17th and 18th Congress but the past administration was not interested in reducing government offices and personnel with over-lapping functions.
He said government could have saved so much had the Duterte government implemented a rightsizing program which is now being espoused by Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Amenah Pangandaman.
Sotto said 55 percent or about P5-trillion of the government budget goes to personnel services or salaries.
In a radio interview, Pangandaman estimated that government could save about P14.8 billion if at least five percent of the redundant government agencies and positions are eliminated.
In Sotto’s Senate Bill 244 filed in the 18th Congress, power is granted to the President of the Republic to deactivate or merge some government agencies.
The measure also mandates the creation of a rightsizing committee by the Executive Secretary, the heads of the DBM and the National Economic Development Authority, and the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) and Civil Service Commission (CSC) chiefs.