Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Eli M. Remolona Jr. has vowed that they will do everything they can to weed out and prevent “ghost employees” within the BSP to preserve its reputation and credibility as an inflation-targeting independent institution and banking system regulator.
Remolona, who has been with the BSP for two years, first as a Monetary Board member in 2022 and as governor in 2023, said he was astonished to find incidence of fraud within the BSP.
“I was flabbergasted. I didn't think this kind of thing would happen at BSP,” he said Tuesday, June 4, during a Tuesday Club event in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila.
“We really need a good reputation and enough credibility just to make monetary policy work. Just to make bank and supervision work and a repayment system work,” he said.
Remolona said at the moment, “we're doing a post-mortem on this (and thinking around) what else can we do to prevent this in the future.”
He again related Tuesday what has been done so far, following what he noted where a lot of anonymous complaints they have received since October last year.
“An anonymous complaint has to be credible, there has to be some evidence. So there is a preliminary investigation to establish whether it's a serious complaint, whether there's any evidence that supports a complaint. So that preliminary investigation was concluded by December. And then I was asked whether we should proceed with a serious investigation,” he said.
“Of course I said yes,” said Remolona. “And since then, we identified four of those employees. And then we also identified their supervisors. Because the supervisors apparently were the ones who vouched for the presence of these employees. So the two supervisors were also put under investigation.”
“Where things stand, I think we acted as fast as we could in the bounds of due process, in the bounds of confidentiality. Civil Service doesn't allow us to tell you the names … but the investigation process should go through very soon. We're already in the disciplinary process. We want to recover the salaries,” said the BSP chief.
Last May 28, the BSP issued a statement on the matter and assured the public that the BSP still has a well-functioning Monetary Board despite that two of its members were allegedly involved the ghost employee scandal.
The BSP has already confirmed of investigating six BSP employees related to the controversies as they attempt to calm markets that the Monetary Board remains intact and functioning.
Last October 2023, the BSP’s Office of the General Counsel launched an internal investigation after receiving “credible information that several staffers in the offices of two MB (Monetary Board) members had not been reporting for work for extended periods of time but were nonetheless receiving their salaries,” said the BSP.
By December last year, the Office of the General Counsel had an initial report of the investigation and instructed the investigating team to proceed with an in-depth investigation, added the BSP.
“In January (2024) the investigating team submitted the final investigation report, where four employees and their two immediate supervisors were identified. The Office of the General Counsel signed it,” it added.
What came next was that from late February to early March, the BSP said “four of the employees and one direct supervisor implicated in the report tendered their resignation. Administrative disciplinary cases were filed in March before effectivity of their separation.”