DUSHANBE, July 14, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, the deputy head of the Public Service Directorate, Grez Qosimov, revealed on July14 that there are 18,443 positions now in public agencies of Tajikistan and 947 of them are still vacant.

He considers that those positions are still vacant due to low wages of public servants in the country.  “An average monthly wage in the country’s public management sector is now some 600 somoni,” Qosimov said.

According to Qosimov, a special commission charged by the president with assessing professionalism of public servants has vetted 2,105 public servants this year so far and 212 of those vetted have been found mismatched to their positions.

“At the end of the year, activities of Tajik public servants will be assessed on the basis of a special system developed by the Public Service Directorate,” the official, “This has become possible due to amendments made to the country’s law on public service on March 10 this year.”

“We are currently studying foreign experiences on this subject in order to fix the rotation period for public servants; it may be that it will be five years or seven years,” he added.