It seems as if the government will be taking the International Monetary Fund’s   (IMF) advice into consideration as considerable public sector reform is expected in the very near future.

The IMF in its full article iv report on the Bahamas released last week, revealed that the government could save taxpayers more money through a combination of public service downsizing and pension reform.

While $70 million might not be the primary target, Press Secretary Anthony Newbold saying the “bloated” sector is under serious evaluation.

“The minister of Public Service and National Insurance Brensil Rolle talked about $16 million dollars being added to the payroll between January and May, it’s a lot of money.

“Some of them are contract workers whose contracts in some instances have expired and all of this is being evaluated,” Mr. Newbold said.

Newbold added that the Minnis administration has already put some measures in place to reduce this deficit.

“Again lots of evaluation, some people on contracts were retirees and brought back, the government froze hiring, contracts $100,000 over won’t be renewed so there have been a number of efforts to look at that wage bill that the IMF is talking about.

“I’m sure there will be others that the Deputy Prime Minister will talk about as far initiatives that the government will take to address what that wage bill will eventually be,” Mr. Newbold said.

In its report the IMF slammed the Christie administration’s “lax spending controls” pre-general election, highlighting just how bloated the public service became as the Christie administration removed all hiring constraints in its desperate bid for re-election.

An IMF graphic showed that the civil service wage bill for the 2017-2018 fiscal year equals close to 8.5 per cent of GDP – compared to a 7 per cent average for the 2005-2016 period.