Watchdog exposes government recruitment chaos but keeps ministries unnamed

The Public Service Commission identified more than infringements while reviewing government recruitment processes, according to its 2025 annual report, which provides no breakdown of the breaches or their impact on appointments.

The findings emerged from 135 compliance checks conducted in 2025 on government selection processes following calls for applications issued between January and December 2024.

The report, tabled in parliament, says it agreed corrective action plans with the relevant authorities. It does not identify which ministries accounted for the infringements, explain their seriousness or state whether any recruitment results were affected.

The findings concern a system in which permanent secretaries exercise delegated authority to issue recruitment calls, appoint selection boards, publish results and make appointments without referring each decision to the commission.

The commission scrutinises a sample of those processes afterwards to check whether recruitment rules and the principle of merit have been respected.

Its stated objectives include ensuring that selection boards interpret eligibility requirements fairly, avoid irrelevant considerations and do not commit procedural irregularities or factual errors that materially affect selection outcomes.

Despite identifying hundreds of infringements, the published account does not distinguish between administrative shortcomings and breaches that could have changed who was eligible, how candidates were ranked or who secured a government job.

The commission said that shortcomings were referred to the permanent secretary responsible, with meetings held where necessary to clarify concerns.

Separately, the commission reports ruling in favour of 168 applicants who challenged decisions declaring them ineligible for recruitment exercises. These challenges are distinct from the compliance checks which found 404 infringements.