Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, who sits as chair of the Maharlika Investment Corp., the new sovereign wealth of the country, is not convinced that officials and technical staff must be getting an unusually high salary.
Instead, he proposed that such compensation should be "result oriented and performance-based" rather than atrociously high.
This, considering that MIC has not proved itself yet thus it would not look good for civil servants and the entire country to be paying pricey compensations to them.
The proposed MIC rate for the president, Rafael Consing, was at a basic monthly of P2.5 million a month, which is not too far from what the BSP Governor earns and those of the Monetary Board members. (See related story https://opinyon.net/national/maharlika-investment-chief-bats-for-p2-5-m-monthly-salary )
A previous OpinYon article noted that the P2.5 million monthly salary being asked by Maharlika Investment Corp. President/CEO Rafael Consing is atrocious and wicked for a country that is reeling from poverty, high unemployment and underemployment, a crisis in education, a yawning housing gap, a country in deep debt here and abroad and a healthcare system that is elusive to the masses.
Sources within the economic team told media that MIC president and CEO Consing, a topnotch investment banker, asked for salaries for himself and some technical positions that were claimed “too high.”
For Consing alone, one source said he asked for a basic pay of P2.5 million per month, higher than that of members of the Monetary Board and close to what BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr. is receiving. Remolona topped the list of highest paid executives in the government last year.
Remolona received P5.97 million for six months as governor or roughly P995,000 per month in basic salary and P3.3 million as Monetary Board member for another six months or about P550,000 monthly.
Recto, who also sits as the MIC chair, doesn’t sound too convinced that the salary structure at the startup sovereign wealth fund should, at the onset, be as much as currently proposed. While he agrees that MIC should offer a competitive package to attract the best talent, Recto said, “Siguro, we don’t start very high,” wrote Biz Buzz column of Inquirer.
Instead, he wants the compensation package for the highly technical positions at the country’s first sovereign wealth fund to be “performance-based,” which means that certain conditions or milestones must be met first.
“So maybe it should be more on the performance bonus, right? To be result-oriented. We suggested that,” Recto told Biz Buzz.
To benchmark its proposal, the MIC board has looked at the salary structure of top officials at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and other government financial institutions.
Reports said that MIC president Rafael Consing had asked for a basic monthly pay of P2.5 million. If it pushes through, this salary won’t be too far from what the BSP Governor earns and may even top what Monetary Board members get.
BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr.’s annual salary stood at P35.48 million last year, thus averaging P2.96 million a month.
Recto said with the performance-based salary structure, it’s still possible for MIC officials to earn what is being proposed.
Consing earlier said that the board is still studying and discussing the remuneration package for employees. Recto said that he is willing to listen to the MIC board.e
DoF Undersecretary Maria Luwalhati Dorotan Tioseco told Biz Buzz that there’s already a list of “very able” potential candidates who will fill the available positions at MIC. However, she stressed that they have to identify first who among them are considered as “highly technical.”
“So, we’re still there trying to figure out the positions that should be highly technical for you to be able to be paid more than the average civil servant,” she said.
The MIC charter has two categories for MIC positions: the highly technical positions, which are exempt from the standard compensation and position classification system, and non-technical positions, which will adhere to the regular system.
He explained that the wealth fund aims to become an engine for economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction by pursuing a dual mandate of financial returns and socio-economic development.
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