I have often wondered how many government employees there are in Panama and how that number compares to other countries. Well, the first part of that query has been answered by an article in La Prensa today showing there are approximately 174,000 civil servants as of July which is 2.8% more than last year at this time. The only positive thing I can say about this growth is at least there is more being accomplished with this administration.
These folks eat up a major portion of the budget with over $900 million spent up until July. That would put the yearly payroll at about $1.8 billion for a population of 3.25 million. That comes out to one government employee for every 18 or so people with an average of about $10,230 per government worker. That's about 5.5% of the total population working for the government. With a work force about 1.3 million it comes to over 13%.
You would think that with so many on the payroll things would go smoothly in government offices, but of course the opposite is true. The more people there are, the more justification each needs to make for their position, which means a big slowdown for anything having to do with government. This is why it takes so very long to get any paperwork through the various ministries. Each person along the way has to review and stamp and of course the amount of errors are so high it is sent back numerous times for correction and in many cases just plain lost. In addition to this inefficiency the more employees the more corruption. There are numerous studies showing this to be the case.
One thing we can always count on is that when new elections come (4 years more) there is a complete change in the civil servants as the winning party has many promises to keep, which means there are not many old civil servants kept on in any new administration. This is both good and bad. The good is you get rid of the rascals who had held sway for 5 years and they get to go back to being whatever they were before being anointed with power.
The bad news is those leaving office scramble to make as much as they can in their positions of stamping before they leave office. They know it means total chaos in the various ministries as everyone new has to learn on the job. If you want to get anything done you don't want to be getting permits when administration changes. It takes at least 6 months to a year to get things moving again.
We can only hope that the technological advancements the government is implementing with help with this in the future, although I rather doubt it. Experience has shown that governments always get bigger as do their budgets which means less efficiency and more bureaucracy. But that's the way the game is played around the world.
If anyone has found statistics for other countries it would be enlightening to compare.
La Prensa
MINERVA BETHANCOURTH
[email protected]
The return of the public sector does not leave the learning curve. Until July 174,000, , 7640 more or an increase of 2.8% compared to July 2009, the report of the Comptroller's payroll.
Compared with January 2010 when there were 162,000 66 staff, the state apparatus grew in July at 11,982 jobs.
The figure recorded until July becomes a new record by exceeding the maximum of officials who had the Panamanian State and registered in 2008 to 173,666 civil servants.
In includes wages, accumulated from January to July of this year recorded an expense of U.S. $ 990.4 million or a growth of 7.9% compared with the first seven months of 2009, when the cumulative total in wages was 917.5 million dollars.
In the budget execution report released in June by the Ministry of Finance called for institutions to design their budgets under the criteria of rationality in operating costs.
The message is addressed specifically to the Central Government which comprises the bulk of staff in some 73 institutions, while challenging the low performance in the investment budget of the various entities.
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