Much like unpaid internships, the paths and positions of power are made unattractive to intelligent and hardworking people who lack generational wealth to work for free or far less than market value, especially when cost of living is so high.
I'm guessing that it's the same.
Your frontline civil servants aren't the wealthy ones, they are working a job. It's their bosses and directors, who control the budgets, and can decided who get's the juicy private contracts.
Isn't the PM from a very wealthy family? That's the sort of thing I am talking about, not the civil servant working at the DMV (or it's equivalent) counter.