LABOUR-SWAZILAND: Bloated Workforce Poised to Bankrupt the Nation

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Feb 28 2003 (IPS) - In Swaziland, government is the employer of last resort against sky-high unemployment figures.

Pro-democracy groups, who seek political reform, also charge that government is the employer of first resort for the friends and associates of government officials who seek patronage jobs, and for relatives who seek positions through nepotism as a way to secure lucrative and prestigious jobs that require no real work. Either way, government’s payroll is poised to bankrupt the nation, and economists say it has to be trimmed.

”Government’s wage bill remains the prime factor in driving up expenditure,” finance minister Majozi Sithole reported to parliament this week when he presented the 2003/4-budget speech.

”Personnel estimates have continued to increase, and even though they now stand at 47 percent of total expenditures, there has been an increase in the actual personnel costs from last year. As this trend has continued over the past years, it has reached unsustainable levels,” said Sithole.

The usually low-key finance minister displayed his only trace of emotion during his budget speech when he broached the subject of government’s bloated workforce. Spending on salaries accounts for nearly half of government expenditures, and is holding back needed development projects because of salaries’ sponge-like absorption of tax revenues.

Economists fear that if government ministries and departments do not trim their workforce and become more efficient, the budget deficit will expand until financial oversight bodies like International Monetary Fund (IMF) impose cost-cutting measures.

”Spending reforms, the IMF insists upon usually call for dramatic lowering of public sector employment numbers, and privatisation of public companies, which the Swaziland unions oppose,” Tom Dube, an economist with an Mbabane bank, told IPS.

The Swaziland National Association of Civil Servants (SNACS) is politically opposed to the rule of sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarchy, and seeks political reforms from King Mswati. Although public servants all sign contracts that forbid them from engaging in political activities, SNACS executives said its membership will participate in a national workers stay-away next week called by the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions to protest government’s lack of commitment to democracy.

But union insiders told IPS there is no real commitment to overthrowing the monarchy, a rebellion that civil servants could help instigate by shutting down government services. One reason is the Swazi people’s reliance on government to provide employment. The most recent Central Bank report placed unemployment nationwide at 40 percent.

Secondly, the ”culture of job entitlement through nepotism and patronage is strong in Swaziland”, an employee at the health ministry told IPS on condition of anonymity.

”People with relatives who are appointed to office by the king, as all cabinet ministers and senior people are appointed, consider the appointments as a lucky jackpot for their relative, and they are entitled to a share,” the source said.

There is reluctance amongst other Swazis to upset the culture of nepotism because, Swaziland being a small country, the day will come, they hope, when a close relation of theirs will receive a royal appointment, and they can benefit.

”The only way government will rise out of its budget deficit and achieve good governance is if we have a public service based on merit, and not privilege,” said Jan Sithole, secretary general of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions.

With government budget deficits increasing yearly, economists have called for a solution to the civil service problem. Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini, a former executive with the World Bank in Washington, heeded such concerns when he instituted a ”zero growth” policy three years ago. This year, no new government posts are being created, the finance ministry said, with the exception of 245 ”emergency” posts targeted at priority areas like HIV/AIDS and poverty alleviation. But inflation has kept salaries rising, eating up more government revenues.

”Government expenditure growth continues to accelerate on account of escalating personnel expenditures whilst revenue growth lags behind,” fretted the Central Bank of Swaziland in a recent report.

The Central Bank’s concern is nothing new, and has been presented since the mid-1990s in the bank’s annual national economic performance reports. What is different this year is government’s apparent awakening to the message.

To address the problem of government’s wage bill, the Public Sector Management Programme has been established, and has undertaken consultancies, including one that addressed the right sizing of the civil service, which are expected to be adopted this year by parliament for implementation immediately thereafter.

”Two major studies commissioned in 2002 to accelerate the implementation of the Public Sector Management Program have been completed,” Sithole told MPs. ”These are the Alternative Service Delivery Options Study, identifying those activates that can or should be performed by the private sector, and the study on determining the required size and sustainable cost of the civil service.”

Both studies are necessary, economists say. While the unions oppose the privatisation of public enterprises such as the postal service and the electricity monopoly, fearing employee layoffs that will cut into union membership, the process seems inevitable. However, if government pushes too far too fast, the palace risks alienating workers whose support is required this year, as a new national constitution expanding the king’s powers is introduced.

No one has ever asked how large or small the country’s civil service must be to work efficiently. The study will establish a statistical foundation for future debate.

”With the evidence of the ever-increasing expenditures on wages, controlling the size of the civil service is imperative,” minister Sithole said this week.

But even cutting government jobs will not immediately cut expenditures, and in the short term may increase them. Sithole noted that retirement packages and other forms of compensation will inevitably add to government debt before the benefits of a trimmer civil service are felt.