Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures on public sector pay
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The SA government remains the largest single employer in the labour market, accounting for 2,108,125 public servants at last count.
Public servants are individuals who work for the state and whose main duty is associated with the welfare of the public and society at large. Their duties include providing service to the public by means of protection, administration or maintenance, in the form of doctors, nurses, teachers, police, correctional services officers and employees in all three branches of government.
Despite the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, the public sector had hoped finance minister Tito Mboweni would honour the 2018 agreement to give public servants above-inflation salary increases of 4.3%-5.4% in 2020. If the wage demands are honoured, the government will have to find and spend an additional R37.8bn this financial year.
According to SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Edward Kieswetter, the country should expect to see a revenue shortfall of about R285bn this financial year, which is 15%-20% shy of what Sars had expected to collect for the financial year. In the three months leading up to June, revenue was down R78bn (-24%). In June alone revenue was down R39bn, a 26% decline from the same period the year before.
Under normal circumstances salaries are a sensitive topic; in these Covid-19 times they become even more so. The pandemic has forced the government to exercise fiscal austerity and reduce its expanding expenditure in an attempt to curb the effects of the pandemic and SA’s economic decline.
Unfortunately, the ANC government has demonstrated a propensity to placate the labour unions for their support during election time. The reality is that giving public servants an above-inflation increase — especially during this Covid-19 pandemic-induced economic crisis — is not only unsustainable but may be immoral too.
National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane has tried to buck the trend of giving into the demands of the labour unions: “Since public servants have been the beneficiaries of decades of above-inflation salary increases, outperforming private sector salaries, this (paying further increases) is not just and equitable. Least of all in circumstances where government is now compelled by the Covid-19 circumstances to expend additional funds to protect vulnerable people ... This is not in solidarity with other workers in the rest of the country.”
According to the National Income Dynamics Study Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey, which assesses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on employment and welfare for a representative ...
Public servants are individuals who work for the state and whose main duty is associated with the welfare of the public and society at large. Their duties include providing service to the public by means of protection, administration or maintenance, in the form of doctors, nurses, teachers, police, correctional services officers and employees in all three branches of government.
Despite the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, the public sector had hoped finance minister Tito Mboweni would honour the 2018 agreement to give public servants above-inflation salary increases of 4.3%-5.4% in 2020. If the wage demands are honoured, the government will have to find and spend an additional R37.8bn this financial year.
According to SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Edward Kieswetter, the country should expect to see a revenue shortfall of about R285bn this financial year, which is 15%-20% shy of what Sars had expected to collect for the financial year. In the three months leading up to June, revenue was down R78bn (-24%). In June alone revenue was down R39bn, a 26% decline from the same period the year before.
Under normal circumstances salaries are a sensitive topic; in these Covid-19 times they become even more so. The pandemic has forced the government to exercise fiscal austerity and reduce its expanding expenditure in an attempt to curb the effects of the pandemic and SA’s economic decline.
Unfortunately, the ANC government has demonstrated a propensity to placate the labour unions for their support during election time. The reality is that giving public servants an above-inflation increase — especially during this Covid-19 pandemic-induced economic crisis — is not only unsustainable but may be immoral too.
National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane has tried to buck the trend of giving into the demands of the labour unions: “Since public servants have been the beneficiaries of decades of above-inflation salary increases, outperforming private sector salaries, this (paying further increases) is not just and equitable. Least of all in circumstances where government is now compelled by the Covid-19 circumstances to expend additional funds to protect vulnerable people ... This is not in solidarity with other workers in the rest of the country.”
According to the National Income Dynamics Study Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey, which assesses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on employment and welfare for a representative ...
