July 5, 2012Dear Sir,Both political parties have advised us that they won’t reduce the number of Government employees by redundancy. In the lead up to a general election, particularly when the Progressive Labour Party have increased Government employment numbers to record highs, I would expect no other statement, because Government employees now can dictate the outcome of any election by sheer weight of numbers. Reducing Government employment through natural attrition and promotion from within is fine if the talent is there, but losing an experienced and knowledgeable servant of the people and replacing her or him with a convenient underling is not necessarily the answer if the replacement person is ill-equipped to do the job and yet another consultant has to be employed to guide them.There have been a lot of recent comments about capital investment in Bermuda over the last 14 years and while valid, most commentators accept that it is the size of Government employment that is the real financial issue and that if the debt generated solely by the Bermuda Government is to be reduced meaningfully, then significant cost savings must be made. It didn’t need to get this bad and the medicine will be unpalatable. Many believe that following the general election, irrespective of the promises made by the PLP or the One Bermuda Alliance, the new Government will have to choose between reduced working weeks or redundancies for their employees because there is something fundamentally wrong when the servants of the people remain unaffected when the people they are supposed to serve, those who also pay their salaries, wages and benefits, continue to suffer.REALITY WILL BITEPembroke