For the first time in Lanao del Sur’s 39 municipalities, government workers are getting their salaries through automated teller machines, officials said.
To ensure a corruption-free system, local officials in the town of Lumbatan in Lanao del Sur have experimented on paying workers via the ATM.
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman said he supports the move of Lumbatan Mayor Allan Lao to adopt a bank payroll system for municipal employees.
Lao told reporters that the municipal legislative body, headed by Vice Mayor Mohidin Camid Lao Mua, has given its full support to the mayor’s plan to adopt an ATM payroll system for employees of the Lumbatan local government unit.
Hataman also told reporters he was expecting other towns in Lanao del Sur to follow suit in a bid to professionalize the municipal bureaucracy.
A sixth class municipality in Lanao Sur’s second district, Lumbatan had a population of 16,700 in 2010and more than 1,000 are government employees.
Lao is now working with the Land Bank of the Philippines to put up an ATM booth in the town hall so workers will not have to go to Marawi City to withdraw their salaries.