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IT’S TIME FOR LEAN GOVT

09/05/2018 01:07:00 By Thabiso Dlamini

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WHY is it ok for civil servants to slack off and operate as if they are doing the general public a favour? Civil servants are now worth E8 billion to government’s wallet each year.

As it stands, the country has one of the highest wage bills in sub-Saharan Africa, coupled with significant weaknesses in government expenditure controls.

It’s time to reign-in on the money that government cashes in and the money it doles out to pay civil servants. The way things are going, we will soon have half of government’s revenue dedicated to paying civil servant salaries. That is half of the money we are being swindled through tax going to pay for a certain section of our population to do nothing!

Every week, and now it seems every other day, government is in a pickle about reshuffling money that was intended for one thing that somehow ends up being directed into a different pot of uncontrolled spending. If it is not trying to settle arrears with some of its suppliers, it is a frenzy about how to raise enough money to pay the different sections of civil servants among a long list of commitments that have a claim on government’s wallet; free primary education, elderly grants, etc.

The bulk of the civil servants who have to be catered for are teachers, nurses, police, warders and soldiers. But of course, in the different dilapidating government buildings, there are directors, officers, assistants and personal assistants, drivers and typists, among many other personnel who are just there to occupy offices and claim a pay cheque at the end of the month.

With civil servants high up in the ranks, if they are not out of the country, they are usually held up in meetings. In fact, most of civil servants have an incentive not to be in the office. It actually pays to be out of the country. The monies they are entitled to when they travel to meetings outside Eswatini have become another source of income that is an added strain to government’s wallet.

How many of these meetings outside Eswatini ever bring real jobs and efficient government service delivery to our country? Zilch!
To top it all, after they have travelled the world and sat in meetings day in and out without any implementation of government’s programmes, they then take ridiculous leave days that leave one wondering how on earth government even manages to exist. You hear of managers and ordinary civil servants taking leave for two months straight in a row.

The question is: if government departments manage to function without those officers on leave, does government really need them in the wage bill? Besides travelling, there are acting allowances. Some positions are left deliberately unfilled because someone can earn more than what is entitled to them by holding two positions at the same time. It’s not like it is more work; no-one is really accountable for anything within government.

You can come to work at 9.30am, disappear for an unaccountable number of hours, take lunch as you see fit for as long as you want, and go home at 3pm.
For the ordinary civil servants who are not privy to some of these travel and acting allowances, and ‘flexible’ working hours, doing the bare minimum has become their motto.

Who among us is ever not filled with apprehension or anxiety when we need a service from government? The first thing that comes to mind if you want to get your personal identification number, passport, or register and pay your vehicle tax, is: ‘who do I know within government who can help get whatever I need in the least possible amount of time’?

Even simple tasks such as certifying personal documents: you are met with police officers packing a lot of attitude about the proper way to stand in the queue and proper way to arrange your documents so that it is easy for the officer to stamp and sign your documents. On the road, probable cause for stopping a law abiding citizen does not apply to our police officers. They can stop you and dish out their demands for whatever they want even on dangerous points in the motorway/freeway where traffic is expected to flow uninterrupted. The teachers that government has to pay every month are just simply tired and have had it with the large number of pupils they have to attend to each day.

They are even mad about the fact that they cannot openly beat down the pupils anymore. The nurses simply don’t care about how you feel; every patient is just a number they have to shuffle through and send home with a packet of Panado. Soldiers on the other hand, …well, I am not sure what soldiers do.

This might come off as a joke but this lackadaisical approach to government work that has infested the different government ministries costs serious money that you and I dish out through taxes. Since government will be taking more money from our pockets to fund the wage bill, among all the other expenditures it has, it is high time we demand proper services and accountability from government, especially from its team of civil servants tasked to deliver the country to Vision 2022. Getting rid of all the useless bodies and made-up positions that are a drain to the taxpayer should be a priority to fiscal consolidation and controlling government’s wallet. Paying tax is not a joke!