The government will recruit more than 12,000 civil servants and teachers and an additional 20,000 service contractors for 2017, according to an announcement by the Ministry of Public Function.

Dated February 10 and obtained yesterday, the announcement specifies that the government will recruit 6,402 civil servants and more than 18,000 service contractors, as well as nearly 6,000 teachers and 2,472 service contractors in the informal education sector.

The recruitment has to be finalised by June 2017, or it will be assumed that the respective ministries do not need the additional staff.

Ministry spokesman Sar Samedy said the recruitment process for civil servants and teachers was based on a “one-out and one-in principle” to replace those who retired, resigned, died or were fired – though a few new positions were also created, he added.

San Chey, executive director of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability-Cambodia, said each ministry should do a need-assessment, and pointed out that, for example, urban centres often had too many teachers, while rural areas went short. “The recruitment should be done due to the need of new staff,” he said.

The government has also long been dogged by allegations of so-called “ghost workers” – employees who are paid for jobs they never turn up for – and one Defence Ministry official recently estimated as few as 20 percent of workers in his department could be considered “active”.

Samedy, however, decried such accounts as mere rumours yesterday, maintaining that employees who engaged in misconduct were fined or fired.