18 Jun 2010

Fiji civil service still too big

8:38 am on 18 June 2010

The permanent secretary of Fiji's Public Service Commission, Parmesh Chand, says the country has too many many civil servants.

Fiji Live reports Mr Chand has told a meeting of the National People's Charter Advisory Council that the country has nearly 27 thousand civil servants yet fails to meet people's expectations.

He says the public sector is charaterised by lack of established service standards, ineffective work systems, ineffectual leaderships, low productivity, and a lack of transparency and accountability.

Mr Chand says the government has allocated a total of 150 thousand US dollars for the restructure.

The Commission had earlier indicated that over 8,000 positions were to be retrenched, with around a third of those going when the interim government brought in compulsory retirement for over 55 year olds.