14 Feb 2012

Cooks review unlikely to lead to big public sector job cuts

3:12 pm on 14 February 2012

A Cook Islands government official says a recent review of the public service by the Asian Development Bank is not necessarily going to lead to massive job cuts.

The Office of the Public Service Commissioner has assured public servants that the report does not herald a repeat of 1996, when another ADB review led to the halving of the public service.

That move was made with the aim of increasing productivity and saving costs.

The Public Service Commissioner, Navy Epati, says the latest ADB report recommends re-structuring and re-organising ministries, and he is confident this is possible without cutting jobs.

He says there has been a massive population drop but the government still needs to maintain schools, hospitals, roads, things like that.