Auditing firm, PwC, is appealing to government to spare the education and health sectors from the freeze on the public sector employment.

Though it supports government’s decision to freeze employment in the public sector, it said in its 2023 Budget review that key sectors such as education and health should be given key consideration and should not be hampered by the freeze on public sector employment.

The 2023 Budget highlighted some key interventions with respect to payroll and human resource management. These included, among others, the freeze on all public sector employment, expunging ghost names from payroll through periodic audits, linking of the Ghana card to the payroll, placing moratorium on granting of extension of employment after retirement and completing the roll-out of HRMIS and its integration to the payroll and GIFMIS.

PwC said “as negotiations with the IMF are currently ongoing, this is a critical area of reforms that need to be undertaken to cut down expenditure. However, whilst we agree with the Government on these measures, key sectors such as education and health should be given key consideration and should not be hampered by the freeze on public sector employment”.

The government also proposed key expenditure measures in the 2023 Budget to support its fiscal consolidation. These include the reduction of the earmarked funds from the current 25% of tax revenue to 17.5% of tax revenue, continued action of the 30% reduction of salaries of the President, Vice President, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and other political office holders, negotiate public sector wages, manage public sector hiring within current budgetary constraints, reduce fuel allocations to political appointees and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies; Metropolitan, Municipal, Department and State Owned Enterprises by 50%, among others.

It said there is the need to downsize government machinery in addition to the implementation of the measures outlined to achieve a more sustainable outcome.

“While these measures may lead to expenditure reduction, we believe that there is the need to downsize Government machinery in addition to the implementation of the measures outlined, to achieve a more sustainable outcome”.