Efforts to reform and strengthen the civil service are being challenged by staffing shortages and a lack of qualified applicants, despite major investments in workforce development.

Deputy Secretary for Relations at the Ministry of Civil Service, Samuela Moce, revealed that while significant progress has been made in public service reforms, key gaps remain in filling positions across government.

Speaking before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence on the Ministry’s 2022–2023 Annual Report, Moce says reforms focused on workforce planning, performance management, modernizing HR policies, and digitizing systems to improve efficiency.

He adds that nearly 79 percent of the Ministry’s budget is directed toward these reform efforts, reaching more than 1,800 civil servants, while close to 300 senior officials received leadership training.

“So again, this has seen the reform emphasis reaching out to all ministries and government agencies. So in terms of assessing overall performance and efficiency in the civil service, it’s through a combination of organizational performance reports, work plans, monitoring, and so on, that the Ministry monitors the applicability and the practicability of the reforms that are being done in addition to customer service assessments made to ministries on how well they have implemented their customer service guidelines.”

Moce highlighted that government staffing has continued to grow, with the civil service expanding significantly in recent years.

Yet, the system is still grappling with vacancies, recording over 2,400 unfilled positions and a vacancy rate of around 10 percent during the 2022–2023 period.

He attributed this to ongoing labour market competition and a shortage of qualified applicants, which continue to slow recruitment efforts.

Mose says that the situation stems partly from the COVID-19 period, when many positions were put on hold as resources were redirected toward health priorities. While ministries are now working to restore capacity, not all roles have been fully resourced.

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