THE FINANCE Ministry yesterday requested the creation of 567 new positions in the public service, at an estimated annual cost of £16 million.
The Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Christos Patsalides, announced the request during yesterday’s meeting of the House Finance Committee, where the Ministry’s supplementary budget for 2007 was submitted.
The budget provides the creation of 669 new positions and the cancellation of 102.
The ministry’s proposal showed that Public Service in Cyprus was grossly inflated compared to other EU member states, with employment in public service increasing by 27 per cent in the decade 1995-2005.
The percentage of state employees compared to the total workforce increased in the same decade from 13.8 per cent to 14.4 per cent, the biggest noted increase in the whole of Europe.
Furthermore, the proposal showed that public servants’ salaries make up 17.7 per cent of GDP (33.9 per cent of the state’s expenditures), well above the European average of 11.9 per cent.
The Committee’s deputy chairman, Nicolas Papadopoulos of DIKO, said after the meeting that deputies had noted that public service in Cyprus was inflated.
But Patsalides justified this by saying state services in Cyprus were among the best in Europe, and that the new positions created were necessary.
The head of civil servants’ union PASYDY, Glafcos Hadjipetrou, agreed the new positions were essential.
He added that PASYDY was willing to co-operate with Parliament in order to increase the quality of state services offered.
And AKEL deputy Stavros Evagorou pointing out the hiring moratorium in the civil service in 2003, 2004 and 2007.
He explained that states with small populations were obliged to have the same European representation as bigger states, and that the mechanisms provided by the EU were the same for all member states.
Evagorou said that for AKEL, the solution to the high expenditure in state wages should be sought in an increase of the GDP.
Speaking after the meeting, DISY deputy Averoff Neophytou said the public’s main concern was the low effectiveness of the public service and the poor quality of services offered.
He added that DISY disagreed with the opinion that the quality of service would improve with the addition of new positions, and blamed the service’s antiquated structure, which has been the same since 1960.
But DIKO’s Papadopoulos responded that despite a request for thousands of new positions, the government had only approved a limited amount.
He added that the government’s and Parliament’s aim was to find ways to improve the efficiency of public service and the productivity of employees.
EDEK’s Marinos Sizopoulos said his party did not disagree with the creation of new positions, but it was concerned with the low levels of services offered.
According to his party’s data, Sizopoulos said the efficiency of Cyprus’ public service was lower than the average in the EU.
“We are also concerned by the fact that special bodies have not been appointed to monitor the productivity of each department so that we can specify whether each department is in need of better staffing or not,” Sizopoulos pointed out.
The European Party’s Nicos Koutsou said that even if 5,000 new positions were created, the problems would not cease to exist.
He said the entire service was in need of restructuring, adding that his party’s stance did not concern public servants but the system, which does not allow employees to achieve the same results as their European counterparts.
