It's my understanding that the guy agreed (after being asked by the government) to stay on to complete this work.
I don't see anything wrong with him choosing to leave if he was going to be adversely impacted financially by staying on.
Also, in fairness to the guy he did say that there were others within his Office capable of taking on this work, so it wasn't like he was just "escaping".
The public service have taken pay cuts already. The next logical step was a reduction in numbers. But it appears that some people will demand that numbers be cut when pay is being reduced, and then when numbers are being cut they complain that pay should be cut rather than reducing numbers.
It's hard to keep up with all of this sometimes.