Government saves P51.1 million by reducing public service

Government has saved millions of Pula since 2011 when a decision was made to rightsize the public service by freezing new recruitments and offering early retirement packages to employees, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mokgweetsi Masisi has revealed.

During the 2011/2012-budget speech Finance Minister Kenneth Matambo announced that the huge public service wage bill would be reduced by 3 percent annually for five years.

Masisi this week said since 2011 a total of P51.1million was saved as at June 2013. This he said amounted to the public service being reduced by 1.7%.

Masisi said 4569 employees in some ministries and departments were directly   affected by the rightsizing of which 2506 were absorbed into new entities such as Statistics Botswana, the former Central Statistics Office. The remaining 1089 was retained in government ministries and departments while 980 were offered the early exit packages.

“In the process of right sizing, government has deliberately taken a decision to avoid public service employees’ salary reductions and retrenchments,” Masisi said also explaining that the 980 employees offered the early exit package could not be absorbed by the new entities or retained by government ministries as their jobs had become redundant.

The minister also revealed that 145 officers in public service are at salary scales F2 to F0 of which 93 are neither permanent secretaries nor deputies. Their salaries amount to 0.54% of the total government wage bill translating to just over P74million per annum. This means that they each get an average of P42 000 a month.