PA minister: the PA "employs twice as many employees as it needs," international community demands that it reduce number of workers

Headline: “Abu Shahla: The international community demanded that the government reduce the number of Palestinian [state] employees”
     “Palestinian Minister of Employment Ma’moun Abu Shahla revealed that the international community has demanded of the Palestinian government that it reduce the number of current employees.
Abu Shahla stated in a press conference he held in the city of Gaza in order to update journalists regarding recent government developments that ‘the Palestinian government is suffering from functional weakness at the moment, and the international community has demanded a reduction in the number of its current employees.’
He added: ‘PA Minister of Finance Shoukry Bishara requests loans from all over every month in order to pay the employees’ salaries,’ and noted that the Palestinian government ‘currently employs twice as many employees as it needs.’
Abu Shahla continued: ‘The political capital of 5 billion dollars a year which the PA is supposed to be receiving since the Oslo Agreements in 1994 has begun to decline, until it reached 760 million dollars last year. He clarified: ‘We expected to receive 1.2 billion in external aid last year, but what we received was not more than 760 million dollars.’
He noted: ‘This year’s signs indicate that we will see a decline in external aid,’ and commented that all of this ‘constitutes general pressure whose aim is to cause political concessions, but it will not succeed.’”