Retirement policy warrants another look

The government has a liberal policy on the retirement of public servants and appears to be trigger-happy to retire officials once they pass the threshold of 30 years in service, no matter their age or state of health. 

What adds insult to injury is the fact that according to this "golden rule" the government of Prime Minister Omar Razzaz had adopted all along, public servants who have passed the threshold of 25 years are also entitled to end their official service and ask for an early retirement. 

Maybe the government wants to bring in new blood but at what cost! On Monday, the Cabinet took a decision to retire 1,800 government officials who had already been in public service for 30 years but luckily exempted physicians, technicians, imams and officials belonging to the Jerusalem Awqaf. Why are only these categories of officials exempted from arbitrary retirement is another question. 

These people may not have reached an advanced age to begin with to have them retire from public service. Encouraging public servants with only 25 years of service to ask for retirement is really disturbing and calls for another look. 

New international guidelines on retirement call for extending the age of retirement beyond the age of 60 if the health of people warrants the delay. 

Early and unnecessary retirement will be costly for the government and the country. The traditional age of retirement has been raised from 60 to 65 in many nations. 

When people are unduly and prematurely retired, and are replaced by new people, government expenditure is doubled as retired people receive pensions and their replacements get salaries as well. 

At a time when the government is low on revenues and needs to scale down public expenditures, why in the world does the government keep on retiring officials prematurely in large numbers? 

Given the economic conditions of the country, the government is called upon to revisit this policy of early retirement of public servants and adopt instead the new international guidelines.