By Mustapha Sesay
In spite of the alarming rate of unemployment rate in Sierra Leone, officials at the Human Recourses Management Office (HRMO) have revealed that over 1000 job positions remain vacant.
The officials told the parliamentary oversight committee on Transparency on Tuesday that there were “1,100 critical vacancies” in the civil service to be filled.
The director of HRMO, Abdul Rashid Bayoh, said in response to the acute shortage of human resources, a couple of months ago 215 professional graduates were employed and 60 low grade staffers of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), who had empowered themselves with university certificates, were absorbed into the system. He however noted continued shortage of professional graduates like lawyers and engineers, citing budgetary deficiencies that had constraint recruitment in those areas.
Mr Bayoh informed the committee members that the HRMO was currently evaluating government jobs to match up with private employers in terms of creating a “balanced salary scale.”
Prominent on the list of concerns of the committee members with regards to the civil service were issues of retirement and performance of civil servants.
The chairman of the Transparency committee, Claude Kamanda, said they were more concerned with retirement of civil servants because it came out as a major issue when they were on a tour with the Anti Corruption Commission. He cited a document in possession of the House which he said showed that 50 civil servants had reached retirement age but were still in the service for over five years.
MP Kamanda said with 180 civil servants having retired since June this year, according to the HRMO, the civil service office must ensure that they were replaced with young graduates.
Deputy minority leader Ansu Kaikai blamed nepotism for the culture of retaining people in office after retirement age, saying such people were still in active service because they had connection with those in power. He said all governments that had been in power for the past three decades were guilty of this. The Pujehun MP added that the case was different for those in the lower grades as their retirement notice reached 90 days even before they reach the retirement age.
Responding to the concerns of the MPs, HRMO Director General Bayoh assured the committee members that his office had put a system in place to look at all those concerns. He said all what they needed was to maintain it. He also said they had undertaken a lot of training activities to enhance the capacity of civil servants at all levels
The HRMO director general then blamed the MDAs for recommending certain staff to stay in office after they would have been due for retirement.
Ansu Samuel Tucker, director of planning at HRMO, also revealed to the committee that in 2014 420 civil servants retired and that they were yet to fill those vacancies because of the significant role they play in the service.
Tucker said the office was also faced with a major challenge in terms of data on some of the civil servants which, he noted, had made it difficult for the HRMO to pay gratuities after death or retirement.
When asked by Politico when the “critical vacancies” would be filled, Tucker said it had to do with budgetary issues. He said however that they were recommending for key positions to be filled particularly in the health sector.
This was because the Ebola outbreak had a spill over effective on the employment sector, he added.
(C) Politico 29/07/15
