The passage of the proposed National Government Rightsizing Program (NGRP) into law will fix the long-standing issue on unfilled positions in the government, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.
Budget secretary Amenah Pangandaman said the NGRP can lead to the reclassification of positions to fill up vacant posts in the government to ensure optimal use of manpower resources across the bureaucracy.
“The Rightsizing Program will fix the long-standing issue of unfilled positions. It’s not just about eliminating and merging agencies, but at the same time, we also want to fix the positions and then carry out reclassifications within departments and agencies across the national government,” Pangandaman said at a recent public hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance on the DBM’s budget.
Pangandaman expressed hope that the proposed bill will be passed into law this year.
“The overarching goal here is to have a bureaucracy that is agile and responsive, especially in modern times. We don’t want a government that is too bloated but provides poor service. It’s a waste of the people’s money,” Pangandaman said.
“We will do this by determining which government agencies may be streamlined and which among them need to be strengthened,” she added.
The NGRP aims to promote a lean, efficient and responsive government workforce by streamlining the agency operations, rightsizing their organizational structure and workforce complement, improving interoperability in government agencies and eliminating functions, programs and projects that are redundant, overlapping or no longer necessary.
On the proposed reclassification of positions to fill up vacant posts in the government, Pangandaman said: “We can issue a circular of sorts, the Civil Service Commission and DBM, to really encourage all agencies across the board to reclassify and fill up their positions,” Pangandaman said.
“Not everyone requests it because it really depends on the priorities of each department and agency,” she added.
