In 2016, the wage bill or cost of government salaries accounted for 62.7% of domestic revenue or 7.8% of GDP in 2016. It amounted to Le932 billion and is projected to remain within the 2017 yearly budget of Le1.83 billion.
The Minister of Finance, Momodu L. Kargbo, said he is currently working on the civil service. “All of a sudden the payroll has become a very serious matter in government finances. Because it consumes over 65% of the domestic generated revenue, so if it is not addressed, it will only grow and become very challenging.”
He said this during the signing ceremony of the European Union (EU) governance sector programme, which will continue to support the civil service reform with the aim of achieving better institutional capacity and human and financial resources to deliver better public services.
The EU and the government have been working together in reforming the public service, culminating in a first phase of right-sizing in early 2017. “We want to build on the successful work done with the HRMO and others and hope to take this to the next level,” said EU Ambassador Tom Vens.
In the Fiscal Strategy Statement 2018 (FSS), it stated that a key feature of public expenditure management is to maintain a clean Government payroll. The aim is to keep the wage bill at a sustainable level of 6% of GDP from 2018 onwards, from 6.3% of GDP in 2017.
Thus, in nominal terms, the Government wage bill will increase from Le1.83 trillion in 2017 to Le2.1 trillion during 2018, consistent with an increase in nominal GDP. The domestic primary deficit will be reduced from 4.5% of GDP in 2017 to 4.0% in 2018 and further down to 2.1% of GDP in 2020.
In an effort to maintain the wage bill at 6.0% of GDP over the Medium Term through a number of measures will include incorporating sub-vented agencies payroll into the computerised Government payroll, collecting NASSIT numbers for all the staff on the Government payroll, paying teachers’ salaries through bank accounts and tackling duplicate assignments with assignments for affected staff being stopped.
MOFED will also be harmonising rent allowances and leave allowances of sub-vented agencies with the wider civil service, completing the teacher verification with the findings implemented, introducing Man-Power planning and a budget formulation processes aligned to ensure a realistic wage bill, introducing a standardized process and set of procedures for seeking approval for new recruitment and a system upgrade to help reduce ghost employees.
In addition, Government with assistance from development partners will develop a payroll strategy to include capacitating the internal audit unit at MOFED to analyse the wage bill to tackle dual employment.
ZJ/20/11/17
By Zainab Joaque
Tuesday November 21, 2017.
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