Africa-Press – Eswatini. The Eswatini government’s wage bill decreased by E47.4 million in a space of three months. The noticeable decrease emanated from the abolishment of the government computer services, office as well as the implementation of the hiring freeze, which is still in force.
This is contained in the ministry of public service annual performance report for the financial year 2021/22 tabled by Minister Mabulala Maseko yesterday. However, the report is still subject to debate and adoption by Parliament.
The ministry reported that unlike the first quarter of the financial year, where the wage bill was depicting an upward trend when compared to the previous financial year, the second quarter began to take a nose-dive with a glaring total decrease amounting to E135 million over the months of August and September 2021.
“As anticipated, a relative noticeable total net reduction of E47.4 million is realised over just three months from October to December 2021, and emanates from the abolishing of the Government Computer Services (GCS) office in recent months and establishment circular No.3 of 2018, which is still in force,” reported the ministry.
The ministry added that the nine months under scrutiny showed a total wage bill amount of E5.519 billion as opposed to E5.650 billion displayed during the same quarter of the previous financial year, translating to a decrease of E131 million.
The ministry further stated that month to month wage bill averages were E613.3 million and E627.8 million respectively for the financial year 2021/22 quarter and financial year 2020/21 quarters in question, and depicted that the current quarter average month figures were E14.6 million lower than previous years.
In essence, this showed that there was an overall decrease of about 2.32 per cent between the months of this quarter and the last year’s quarter despite the usual automatic notching during April of every year, and the filling of numerous vacant positions in the months under scrutiny.
The combination of the continued hiring freeze and GCS abolishing of office depicted that the wage bill was projected to reach heights of about E7.359 billion by the end of the year as opposed to an actual of E7.413 billion manifest during the financial year 2020/21.
“This depicts a reduction of E53.9 million, translating to minus 0.7 per cent drop,” added the ministry. With regards to the trend of civil servants head count for the financial year 2021/22, the ministry reported that the actual number of civil servants on the payroll since the implementation of the hiring freeze in 2018 has continued to drop at a rate of minus one per cent on a yearly basis.
The quarter under scrutiny showed an average of 44 445 civil servants under payroll for the current year quarter as opposed to 45 101 attained during the same quarter of the previous financial year, owing to the abolishing of the GCS department, mechanisation unit as well as the fuel inspection and quality assurance unit.
The ministry added that at least 145 employees had their services terminated by the end of September 2021.
From the previous year to the current year, an average decrease of 656 civil servants, translating to about minus 1.5 per cent drop was observed during the nine month period as opposed to a decrease of minus 0.9 per cent that was observed during the same period in the financial year 2020/21.
The ministry added that basic salaries have over the last three months of the financial year 2021/22 decreased at an alarming rate of one per cent when compared to the financial year 2020/21 months under scrutiny agreeable to the 1.1 per cent average drop in civil servants count over the same months under scrutiny.
Despite the usual one per cent actual increase in basic salaries attributable to automatic notching with the filling of critical positions taking its toll as well, basic salaries over the months show a total of E4.830 million as opposed to E4.824 million manifest during the same months of the previous financial year (2020/21).
The abolishment of the GCS office has a huge bearing since it contributed about E1.2 million on a monthly basis and translating to at least 0.2 per cent of the total basic salaries figure.
As such, there is a 0.1 per cent slight increase in basic salaries during this third quarter of 2021/22 as opposed to at least 1.8 per cent increase manifest in previous years.
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