Costly civil service

By LUKE KAMA
ALMOST half of the K12 billion annual budget is spent on maintaining the public service, says Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.
On top of that, he said K2bn went to the free education programmes, K1.5 billion to health and K1.5 billion to maintaining investments “we are making in the districts and provinces”.
“Then (after all those allocations), you are looking at a balance of less than K1 billion to go into road infrastructure,” O’Neill said.
“So how many roads and bridges you can build with that?”
He said it was very challenging for the Government to deliver services on a K12 billion budget when almost half of it was used to maintain the public service.
“Sometimes our expectation of a Government to deliver services is quite high and that is nothing wrong with that, but we must be mindful of the challenges we face,” he said.
O’Neill said there was no revenue stream for the Government to address some of these high-impact projects in the country.
“Some of the issues and challenges that we face are not because we have a bad government or bad legislation in the country,” he said.
“Some are simply beyond our control.
“We cannot control global prices of oil and gases or prices of copper and gold.
“We have an economy that is largely dependent on the mineral sector and we have not diversified enough of our economy base in the past.
“That is why our government is focusing on encouraging small-to-medium enterprises and developing the agriculture and tourism sectors.”