They are politically loyal, but the many Surinamese civil servants are too high a cost item

Say “seven-even” in Suriname, and everyone will know what you are talking about. It is the standing expression for a unique population group, the so-called ghost officials. They arrive at work around seven in the morning, the usual start time of a working day in Suriname. They sign for attendance and leave almost immediately. Go home, or to their second, ‘real’ job.

Even though they hardly do anything as civil servants, they do receive a monthly salary. As a country with high government debts, deficits and enormous inflation, Suriname also has a money-consuming, unwieldy and ever-expanding civil service. According to Steven Debipersad, an economist affiliated with Anton de Kom University and also chairman of the Association of Economists in Suriname (VES), an estimated forty percent of the formal working population (consisting of 133,663 people, an unknown number work in the informal sector ) official.

Now that the South American country, under pressure from international creditors and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has to put its state finances in order and reform its economy, the swollen civil service is also coming into the picture. The government of President Chan Santokhi is unable to pull Suriname out of the economic doldrums and last week also had to deal with street protests, resulting in riots and the storming of the parliament hall. An important cause of the unrest are the ever-increasing prices, including for basic products, and the enormous inflation. But there is also a lack of confidence in Santokhi, who is now entering his third year as president. While the population is expected to cut spending, the leaders live in luxury, promising again and again in vain that the burdens of the Surinamese will be eased.

Read also: How the rising discontent in Suriname came to a shocking outburst

The government desperately needs a cut in the civil service. In the government budget of 2022, an amount of almost 6 billion Surinamese dollars (170 million euros) was spent on salaries of civil servants, out of a total budget of 24 billion.

‘Friends and Family’

At the same time, a job with the government continues to be regarded as a ‘lottery ticket’, because those who work for the government are assured of health insurance and a pension, among other things. Mass dismissal of (phantom) civil servants would affect them – and their dependent family members – at a time when many citizens are already struggling to keep their heads above water due to inflation and tax increases. So when Minister Riad Nurmohamed (Public Works) warned last year that he would no longer accept a “seven-even mentality” at his ministry, the alarm bells probably went off among many civil servants. From now on, the minister firmly emphasized at a press conference, “everyone would be deployed”.

The phenomenon is deeply rooted in Suriname. It can be directly traced back to the custom that every new government offers as many ‘own people’ as possible – people of their own political colour, and therefore often their own ethnicity – work at the ministries. In addition, every government tries to make room for ‘friends and family‘, as nepotism is called in Suriname.

As in many South American countries, patronage plays an important role in the appointment of civil servants: not training or capacity, but loyalty is decisive. Top positions are not held by experts, but by people who are ‘loyal’ to the government. As a result, the implementation of government policy often falls short, because the most important functions are not performed by people with expertise. This makes it difficult to really change things, such as the poverty policy or the tax system.

“The budget would look very different and we would have a lot more money left over if we reduced that enormous civil service and, above all, chose the right person in the right place. It can no longer be done the way it is now,” says economist Steven Debipersad, affiliated with Anton de Kom University. “Let civil servants leave the government and become active in the manufacturing sector. As a country, we have to produce much more, earn more money,” he says.

In exchange for the emergency loans that Suriname receives, the IMF also demands that the government apparatus be reformed. Bouterse left his country with a national debt of 4 billion US dollars, and after President Santokhi came to power in 2020, he had to turn to the IMF.

Just before the transfer of power, Bouterse hired another few thousand civil servants. Santokhi was then stuck with these officials, because they should not be fired just like that. Under the Bouterse government, the number of civil servants rose to more than 48,000, and according to Minister Bronto Somohardjo (Internal Affairs), it has already risen to 53,000. If it were up to him, that number would be more than halved, to 23,000.

To make this possible, the government first started registering civil servants. This is to get “a realistic picture” of who are all civil servants and, above all, how many there are exactly. Subsequently, there must be a major project in which civil servants approaching sixty can take early retirement, and other civil servants are encouraged to find work elsewhere, for example within the private sector. The appeal to all civil servants, including all ghost civil servants and the ‘seven-evens’, to register started last year. The registration is mandatory. Last month, according to the Minister of the Interior, probably 85 percent had already reported.

An official does not argue

It is not for nothing that successive governments shied away from actually downsizing the money-guzzling government machine. A major obstacle is that many civil servants are political loyalists to whom the incumbent government can appeal at election time. And those who are in the government are called ‘accommodated’ in Suriname: a civil servant will not easily express his dissatisfaction or demonstrate, for fear of reprisals.

Also read the editorial: The people of Suriname rightly think that President Santokhi should tackle the problems quickly

In the aftermath of the storming of parliament a week ago, during a discussion evening on Thursday about the planning of new protests, officials wondered whether they could join. “I would like to join the demonstration, but I am afraid that I will lose my job,” said a young male official, during the meeting broadcast via Facebook Live.

Yet dissatisfaction is also growing among civil servants because they are rapidly becoming impoverished due to the enormous devaluation of money. Although the pressure is mounting on Santokhi to clean up the extensive civil service, the question is whether he will succeed in pushing through this unpopular measure, which previous governments have been reluctant to touch.