I agree with the view of many people including former senior civil servants like myself that the government should not grant an across the board salary review until a programme has been worked out to trim down the overstaffed departments and redeploy redundant staff to the priority sectors of the civil service.

In this age where technology can be used to replace human labour, there should be plenty of opportunities for such restructuring in order to achieve savings in the government's salary bill.

One way to achieve the savings is to close down a number of departments which clearly have no reason to exist at all. For example, do we need Rela at all as an additional security force when the priority should be to strengthen the regular police force?

Or why do we need the Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board when the Road Transport Department should be able to do the job?

By cutting out the fat from the civil service the government will be able to have substantial savings in order to pay better salaries for the high priority sectors like education, health, the police and other key law enforcement agencies.