Public service rumours refuted

2003-12-22 22:08

Cobus Grobler

Cape Town - The department of public service and administration on Monday dispelled union-based rumours that about 75 000 senior posts in the public service were vacant.

Responding to media reports, Alvin Rapea, the department's executive manager, said there were a total of 16 188 vacant posts in both national and provincial departments. Most of these, he added, were not for highly skilled workers.

At present, the department of health has the highest number of vacancies because there is a need for trained staff such as nurses and doctors.

Rapea said that the public service was still in the process of being restructured.

This includes the retrenchment of about 13 000 surplus staff and another 7 000 defence force members.

Some of these staff could either be placed in other posts or be retrained.

According to him the final number of redundancies would be determined after an agreement with trade unions was reached and after a comprehensive study had been carried out to determine exactly what staff was needed for the public service.

- Die Burger