Examining the Ramifications of Not Opening New Public Posts

When the Ethiopian government announced its intention of not opening new posts in the civil service in the current fiscal year, the news shocked students and graduates. For many years, employment in the public sector has guaranteed a stable life. In a changing scenario now, public sector employment is no longer a guarantee for a decent income and regular life. In recent years, the salary and benefits of public sector employees have been minimal. At the same time, the working environment compromises professional freedom as more public sector roles have increasingly become political. That’s because successive governments used the civil service to reward their loyal supporters by offering employment.

For this reason, the civil service is already crowdedly staffed, many of whom need to be more skilled. It’s one of the reasons why the current government found it difficult to institute an efficient and corruption-free civil service. Like its predecessor, it, too, wanted to reward some of its loyal supporters by granting them employment in the earlier days of its ascendancy. However, due to a solid fiscal discipline needed to curb inflation, the government announced its intention of not opening any new posts last July. EBR’s Nejat Mohammed explores the ramifications of this policy.