Economist Frederic Emam Zade comments today in El Caribe newspaper on the hidden costs of state bureaucracy. He said that the annual state payroll is US$1.04 billion, but when office furniture, uniforms, power consumption, telephone and other expenditures are added in, the public employees cost taxpayers US$1.8 billion a year. He says that if the government had cut a third of its employees, it would have had sufficient liquidity to have avoided the necessity of the recent sale of US$600 million in sovereign bonds. He said that the problem is not only the excessive cost of bureaucracy, but also the poor quality of the service they deliver.
Yesterday, El Caribe reported that the government paid RD$21.16 billion in wages in 2002, up from RD$19.24 billion in 2001 and RD$16.47 billion in 2000. According to data from the Central Bank, as of September of last year, the government listed 301,446 people on its payroll. Research has shown that the government would be more efficient with a third less of its personnel.