Streamlining of public sector

The number of civil servants in Greece will have been reduced by 200,000 by the end of the government’s 4-year term in office, interior minister Yiannis Ragoussis said in a newspaper interview appearing on Sunday, while salaries at ministries, where “scandalous benefits” continue to exist, will also be trimmed down.

In an interview with the Sunday newspaper To Vima, Ragoussis spoke of mismanagement of the human potential in the public sector for decades, which he said has evolved into a mentality that is destructive to the public interest.

It was only a matter of time for such a public sector to go bankrupt, the minister said, and announced that a circular will be issued in the coming days asking for a list of staff shortages as well as one of capable employees whose abilities are not being taken advantage of in the services in which they are employed.

Ragoussis stressed that there will be no dismissals of tenured civil servants, explaining that the reduction in staff numbers will result from the freeze on hiring and the ratio of “one hiring per five retirements”, the reduction in the number of contract employees after the expiry of their contracts, termination of the STAGE program, and the reduced needs in the local and regional governments resulting from the ‘Kallikratis’ public administration reform program.