THE freezing of new vacancies in the public service sector will still be enforced unless and otherwise a ministry provides sufficient evidence that a position must be filled.
This was highlighted by Minister of Finance and Treasury, Harry Kuma when introducing the Appropriate Bill 2022-2023 last week.
Minister Kuma said this are some of the series of drastic measures apply by the government to alleviate its poor financial position.
Solomon Star understands that the freezing of the new recruitments had been effective as of January 1, 2021, as announced by the Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Public Service, Nego Sisiolo, in a statement issued by the Government Communication Unit.
He said as one of the critical preconditions to act on the DCCGA Redirection Policy, the Cabinet has decided on recruitment moratorium in the SIG- Public Service.
Sisiolo said effectively all vacant positions are now unbudgeted for and becoming inactive as well.
He further added that exceptional cases would be given to statutory positions, the resource and productive sectors, basic services in the education sector, and the essential services that demand government intervention.
The permanent secretary added that due to the moratorium in place, government ministries and agencies are asked to do “…organizational functional and job description reviews…” and existing HR capabilities to gear towards implementing the DCGA redirection policies.
PS Sisiolo emphasized that this measure is taken to address; the unnecessary expansion of the workforce, which contributes to wastage of scarce resources, “stabilize workforce growth and payroll pressure in the medium term…”, and the opportunity to take performance audit to ensure efficiency in the delivery of services.
“The recruitment moratorium will be in place from January 1 2021 until further notice,” he said.
Freezing of public service recruitment is not a new undertaking, governments often placed such a moratorium to maximize the efficiency of the public service sector and to save costs as well.
By FOLLET JOHN
Solomon Star, Newsroom
