Bahrain Mirror: The Civil Service Bureau said that the number of employees in the government sector will be only 40 thousand after finishing implementing the voluntary retirement program, Al-Ayam newspaper reported.

It said that there is about 7500 foreigners working in the government sector and they cost around 15% of the state budget expenses.

The civil service bureau pledged to establish a training complex for each ministry to rehabilitate Bahrainis, in order to replace foreign employees with Bahrainis.

This came in the visions of the Audit Office of the Parliamentary Financial and Economic Affairs Committee, as the bureau stressed that more than 9000 government employees submitted for the voluntary retirement program; 8025 of them met the requirements and were accepted. The cost estimated to finance their retirement is 230 million dinars, which will save 290 million dinars over the fiscal years 2019 and 2020.

The bureau confirmed that the priority in recruitment is for Bahraini citizens. It also said that it does not need to allocate an additional budget for the implementation of the Bahraini substitution project. The bureau noted that it is a service body not concerned with increasing the revenues of the state's public budget.

It noted that it seeks to restructure jobs in ministries and government agencies after the implementation of the voluntary retirement program.

The civil service bureau stated that the estimated expenses of salaries in the first part of the draft law of the general State budget amounted to 131 million for 2019 and 159 million dinars for 2020, as they decreased by 210 million from the previous budget.

As for the number of staff in the bureau, it was reported that they were 281 employees providing services to approximately 48,000 government employees, 32 of whom will retire under the voluntary retirement program.

Arabic Version