Government launches civil service staff audit

The government has today launched a national audit of the civil service aimed at establishing government employee and payroll data with a view to streamlining the public sector.

Prime Minister Hassan Khaire while launching the exercise at a city hotel Sunday said the audit was instrumental in not only understanding the human resource composition in the public sector but also critical in policy formulation.

“I have today launched the human resource audit which aims to get correct employee HR and payroll data,” the PM said. “The audit will help evaluate the state of FGS (Federal Government of Somalia) civil service and policies to determine overall effectiveness.”

The exercise which is set to kick off Monday according to the PM will also help ‘to identify civil servants, their working conditions and how we can make sure they are supported’.

There have severally been concerns about the cost effectiveness of the public service with claims of existence of ghost workers.

According to statistics captured in the 2017 national budget last July, the civil service is made up of 5,526 employees. Out of this, a majority which is grade A is 2,502 and are the highest paid followed by grade B (1527), grade C (995) and the grade D with 502 employees.

The 2018 national budget set aside $130.4 million for government employees’ compensation up from $128 million in 2017 and more than double ($52.9m) in 2015. This is against a $274 million budget meaning at least half of the national budget goes to civil servants salaries.