Fund managers of the proposed Maharlika Wealth Fund will be ensured fat paychecks if the proposed mega investment portfolio becomes a law.
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said lawmakers deliberately chose to exempt members of the board of directors of the sovereign investment fund from salary limits under the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) and Civil Service Law to “attract the best and the brightest.”
“Kasi ngayon yung private sector remuneration ay hindi mapantayan ng kahit aling (agency) except kung from BSP… Yung private sector talent is being monopolized by the private sector,” he told Radyo Singko’s Ted Failon on Monday (December 5).
“With the kind of Salary Standardization Law we have right now, it’s very low,” Salceda added.
Under the SSL, the maximum salary of a government agency worker is P423,723 and that rate is exclusive to the President. The highest-paid government official is the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) at about P1 million a month, which pales in comparison to C-suite salaries among corporates.
Fund managers will sit on the Maharlika board and make the calls as to where to invest the money solicited from pension funds SSS and GSIS, as well as investible funds of LandBank, Development Bank of the Philippines, and BSP.
BSP Governor Felipe Medalla, however, said he doesn’t want dollar reserves to be included in the investible funds pooled into the MWF.
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