OPINION | Bureaucratic rightsizing a big part of fiscal reform push [My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.] READ:
mong the displeasure by the public of the huge and elaborate government bureaucracies, both national and local, is that they produce very little except more regulations, restrictions and prohibitions, require more taxes, fines and penalties. So the public desire less bureaucratic restrictions and taxation, more free enterprise and competition.
Reforming the government bureaucracy has been tried in many administrations before but did not prosper. Here are 10 things about the bureaucracy and ways to reform it.Salaries, allowances, pensions, other pay by National Government personnel expanding fast. Total personnel expenses from 2015 to 2021 expanded two times, while nominal gross domestic product has expanded only 1.5 times.
Note that these numbers refer only to National Government permanent positions and do not include casual, contractual and other nonpermanent staff. They also do not include employment by local governments.Military and uniformed personnel compensation and pension rising faster than civilian personnel. From the 2015 level, their compensation and pension had doubled by 2020 or after five years, while civilian personnel compensation and pension had doubled by 2022 or after seven years .
A big reduction in the budget deficit, annual borrowings and interest payments should happen soon. Interest payment alone was P429.4 billion in 2021, P512.6 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach P582.3 billion this year. Now that the president and the House leadership have expressed serious intent to establish the Maharlika Investment Fund, the government is implicitly coerced to limit spending and the deficit, and generate fiscal surplus somewhere. Rightsizing the bureaucracy is an important part of this big fiscal reform, along with pension system reform in the military and police.Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.
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