Hardlya year after deciding against implementing the Enhanced Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme (EVERS), government feels there is still a need to cut the number of its employees and reduce the wage bill.
It has now been decided that the civil service be trimmed by at least 2 000 people, this time without resorting to retrenchments. Instead, the plan is to reduce the wage bill through redeployment, natural attrition and a possible voluntary exit scheme akin to EVERS.
Natural attrition refers to the reduction of an entity’s workforce as a result of people resigning, retiring or passing away.
Mthunzi Shabangu, Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Service says ministries are technically still free to recruit but appointments are being tightly controlled through management audits, workforce planning and budget availability. The reader will recall that as recent as last November, the EVERS idea was alive and kicking. For years, this voluntary retirement scheme had been flaunted as a possible solution to the bloated wage bill. However, its implementation has been halted, at every attempt, by financial constraints.
That is the paradox government is facing with regard to controlling spiralling expenditure, especially where personnel costs are concerned.
Government needs money to cut down on this particular expenditure. About a year ago, the EVERS idea was revisited but hit a brick wall once again when it emerged that an amount of about E1.3 billion was required for payout packages.
Each time he presents his budget, Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg mentions the ballooning wage bill. To put matters into perspective, this financial year’s national expenditure is expected to reach E36.92 billion.
A whopping E12.44 billion of it is projected to go towards paying salaries and allowances for every person who will get paid from the National treasury in the current financial year, 2026/2027.
In his last Budget Speech, Minister Rijkenberg said in the 2025/2026 financial year at least 10.48 billion had been set aside for salaries and related personnel costs. At least E635 million would be used to settle the 85 per cent back pay government still owed its employees for full implementation of the 2025/26 salary review.
The Finance minister told Parliament that even though the impact of the salary review had increased the wage bill from 32 per cent to 33 per cent of government’s total expenditure, this was still manageable, compared to the 42 per cent that had been reached in the 2018/2019 financial year.
It was Rijkenberg’s view that government efforts to rationalise the wage bill were paying off, while also taking into consideration the welfare of public servants – and without compromising service delivery.
Be that as it may, the minister promised that government would still work towards reducing the percentage of the wage bill to total expenditure to below 30 per cent. Taking all that into account, would letting go of 2 000 people be enough to reduce the wage bill when the government workforce currently stands at a staggering 43 959 people?
Cutting this number by 2 000, if the strategy works out this time around, would still leave 41 959 people on the government payroll.
I liked the idea, as espoused by Public Service PS Shabangu, that management audits and Alternative Service Delivery programmes, which assess where employees are most needed, were being used. These tools also identify opportunities to deploy existing staff more efficiently, instead of recruiting new personnel.
We can all agree that an excessive wage bill makes it hard for governments to channel funds to capital projects, health and education programmes. It also forces governments to accumulate debt through loans, to keep the fires burning. Be that as it may, options to be considered to reduce the wage bill in Eswatini should cut across the entire public service.
Any and every sector that has people on government payroll should be considered, of course taking extra caution when it comes to essential services like health and education.
Government should also take a closer look at the number of ministries, with a view to merge some. The Department of Sports and Culture functioned quite efficiently under the Ministry of Home Affairs, before it was made the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs.
So far, this ministry’s actual contribution to the wider economic spectrum or even the development of sports in the kingdom has not been evident.
Our national soccer team is still playing home games in South Africa because we do not have FIFA-standard stadiums. Sihlangu Semnikati has not made an impact even at COSAFA level, let alone the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).
In the Commonwealth Games currently in progress, we are only represented by a handful of athletes while participants from countries like Lesotho, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa have better representation and impactful performances.
Rwanda, with a population of about 14.9 million, has 20 ministries in its national government, following a June 2026 restructuring that abolished the ministry in the Office of the President.
The east-central African country has only one Ministry for Finance and Economic Planning, as well as for Public Service and Labour.
Eswatini, with a population of about 1.3 million, has 18 ministries, if one excludes the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister’s offices.
However, Parliament has 21 portfolio committees which, according to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Eswatini website, corresponds to the number of ministries. They include the portfolio committee on Defence and Security.
Coincidentally, the news that government plans to offload 2 000 workers comes just as a former civil servant is arrested for allegedly defrauding government over E3.7 million. It is alleged that the former educator received undeserved salaries from 2006 when he resigned from government to March 2026. How many other people who left government employment are still getting paid today?
That is the question the relevant government departments should be asking, and then proceed to take action. It is obvious that the controls in place, either at departmental level or the treasury department, are not strong enough to filter out ghost employees.
There is also the ever-recurring matter of people who continue working, either through cunningly altering their birth certificates or being awarded legitimate contracts, past the retirement age of 60.
These officers are everywhere, especially within the senior ranks of the government hierarchy. The wage bill can do without these people.
