Reluctant austerity

THE time for tokenism has long gone. Unless the current government gets serious about introducing and implementing a long-term sustainability plan, the financial pain the nation is being made to suffer now will yield few positive outcomes for the future. Under pressure to curtail its expenditures, the government is reportedly mulling various measures to ‘right-size’ its footprint. The proposals currently under consideration include merging some ministries, and either collapsing, shutting down, or transferring a total of 28 departments under five identified ministries to the private sector. Another proposal seeks to consolidate 12 institutions running under these five ministries, while yet another suggestion is to abolish the around 150,000 positions currently lying vacant in the federal government and gradually phase out various posts in grades 1 to 16. Meanwhile, the prime minister is also said to be insisting on shutting down or privatising any state institution “which has not shown adequate performance”.