4 - 10 January 2001

Public Service must now be accountable

As of last Monday, employees in the Civil Service started to benefit from a new collective agreement that will see them receiving hefty pay rises and better working conditions.
After many months of discussions, the government and the Unions reached an agreement that will, undoubtedly, make many government employees very happy, but will also bring salaries in line with those in the private sector.
This exercise, however, is not cheap and the government is going to have to fork out millions of liri to pay the bill. Replying to a parliamentary question by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo in summer, Finance Minister John Dalli said that the gross effect of the new civil service collective agreement on government expenditure will be Lm37.9 million this year.
The increased government outlay this year as a result of the agreement, includes Lm23.8 million which will go on wages, salaries, allowances and overtime; Lm2.1 million on social security contributions by the government as an employer; Lm2.1 million as the state contribution; Lm2.9 million in Treasury pensions and Lm7 million in social security pensions. Thus, Mr Dalli or rather the taxpayer, will have to contribute nearly Lm38 million to fund a government service that is bloated, inefficient and, in most cases, unaccountable for its actions.
With the country already struggling to keep the deficit under control, this added burden will only force the government to somehow recoup this expense. However, this should certainly not come about through the introduction of new taxes that hit the working or middle class.
On the other hand, one must admit that salaries paid to government workers have changed very little over the past decade or so, and therefore the collective agreement that came into effect on New Year’s Day will erase any anomalies that may have existed between salary scales in the public and private sectors.
Here, however, any similarities cease to exist. There is a huge difference between the service provided by a government employee and one working with a private company. One just cannot compare the two. As stated earlier, the Civil Service is bloated, inefficient and unaccountable for its actions and little has been done over the years to change this image. The new salaries will surely be used by the government to incentivise its workers but just giving out cash incentives will not solve anything.
Civil servants have no excuses whatsoever now. Neither do the Unions. All government workers – through their respective union representatives – received what they wanted. Fair enough. Yet now they have to show each and every one of us that they are going to give a service that is commensurate with their wage increases.
Mr Dalli was once quoted as saying that there was no room for employees in a civil service who went to work in the morning, signed in and left for another job. We hope that the government will ensure that this will no longer happen. Each and every employee should be accountable for his or her actions. If they fail to perform they should be severely reprimanded and the person responsible for that section or department must, likewise, be given an earful. Words alone will not suffice, but a few trimmings on their wage packet might be painful enough.
The government has tried to improve the public service’s image. The introduction of Quality Service Charters for each ministry was welcomed however much more has to be done to bring the whole infrastructure up to scratch.
The Malta Business Weekly feels that the government must eke out those elements that are causing more harm than good. Those employees who happily sit at their desk reading the paper and do nothing else, except maybe go out for a coffee at 10am, an extended lunch at 12.30pm and another coffee break at 4pm. Or those who dilly-dally and take a week to finish a five minute job.
The Unions have a big role to play in ensuring that the civil service they worked so hard to get a good bargain for, gives back to the taxpayer what he or she is due – a full day’s work. The Unions must be the first to step in and ensure action is taken if individuals are found abusing their position.
It is still early days to judge what will happen. Maybe in six months’ time, we will get a better picture of how the public service is operating. Although membership of the European Union will require the public service to be reduced, this is not the only reason why the government must put its own house in order. Lm37.9 million is no measly sum and could well be used to plug the proverbial ‘hole’. We hope that this sum of money is being well spent and not money down the drain.