THE STATE payroll is sucking the treasury dry, accounting for one-third of the government’s budget. It has also increased fivefold over the past 20 years, it emerged yesterday as allegations were made that some civil servants were ‘sitting at home’ on a salary of €5,000 a month.
Confronted yesterday at a meeting with the economic advisory representatives of coalition partners DIKO and EDEK, Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis said: “When you have 60,000 civil servants, it is very possible that you’ll have some who get paid without working. This is very natural. It happens in every public and private organisation. The issue is to establish, together with the other parties, the legal tools which will allo0w us to punish those employees who are taking advantage of the Cypriot taxpayer.”
Over the last five months alone, an additional 4,312 people were employed in the broader public sector, and ministries are demanding more personnel for the year to come in order to cope with the increasing workload.
In 1990, €372 million went toward paying the wages of civil servants and employees in semi-governmental organisations. By comparison, the 2010 budget provides for €1.9 billion.
According to figures heard last week in parliament during the budget debate, in July the number of people employed in the public sector stood at 63,719. This month, it has risen to 68,031.
Hiring increased across the board, but was most pronounced for full-time civil servants and hourly employees. The numbers are 38,065 and 39,288 for the former, and 8,162 and 11,049 for the latter, for July and December 2009, respectively.
Speaking in parliament, DISY deputy Averoff Neophytou illustrated how the sheer size of the public sector was cleaning out state coffers. He warned that at the current rate the state payroll would almost double by 2020, reaching the €4 billion mark. His estimate was based on the average annual increase in the payroll (6.3 per cent) recorded over the past five years.
The DISY deputy said that for every euro in revenues generated by the state in 2010, 38 cents would go to paying wages, nine cents to pensions, 22 cents to running expenses and 11 cents to loan servicing, leaving just 20 cents to finance development projects and welfare.
And a report prepared by the House Finance Committee warns the state payroll will spin out of control in the years to come without a drastic change and calls on the government to take a series of measures to raise productivity.
In his budget address two weeks ago, Stavrakis ruled out the possibility of any cuts in the salaries of civil servants.
