Letter: Public payroll

Two more job offerings in the newspaper by Cook Islands Investment Corporation. Your readers might want to have a look at CIIC's webpage and the small army of people standing proudly in the main picture.

Parents who walk around our schools, customers who visit other CIIC maintained buildings, will wonder if anyone in that ever-expanding army knows how to use a wire brush to scrape off rust, and a paint brush to apply primer and then paint, and how to use the other basic tools that most home-based handywomen and handymen use to maintain and protect the family home.

No one appears to be sounding the alarm that the Public Service seems to be suffering from the same malady of bloat that we see in headlines about our population being some of the chubbiest on earth. Will government tell us the present number of people on the public payroll as well as the monthly payroll?

(Name and address supplied)