The SA Revenue Service (Sars), one of the government agencies in the middle of recovering from the state capture project, has offered R500m in pay increases and one-off bonuses as it seeks to avert a work stoppage that could affect tax collection.
In a confidential document addressed to the Public Servants Association (PSA) and National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) and dated May 22 — which required a password to open and which Business Day has seen — Sars offered the unions R70m to fund salary increases. It said R430m will be doled out as a one-off gratuity payment for the 2021/ 2022 fiscal year.
The package is a shift in stance for Sars, which countered the union leaders’ demand for a pay increase of between 11.5% and 12% with a wage freeze proposal for the more than 10,000 workers in the bargaining unit.
Treasury
It could be seen as Sars’s determination to avoid a strike, scheduled for this week, even as it faces a R9bn funding shortfall after being one of the agencies that fell victim to state capture. A strike could affect a wide range of services to taxpayers and the supervision of custom posts at the country’s ports and airports.
“Sars, like all government institutions, is affected by financial challenges facing the country. In Sars’s funding allocation from National Treasury, no allocation has been made for salary increases,” Sars head of employee relations and labour, Sobantu Ndlangalavu, said in the document.
“Notwithstanding, through Sars’s own diligence and initiatives, it is able to make available some funding for salary adjustments to the guaranteed total remuneration packages of employees in the bargaining unit of an amount of R70m.”
Ndlangalavu said this offer “serves as a full and final settlement of the dispute relating to the salary increase demand of the 2022/2023 substantive wage negotiations”.
Sars employs about 13,000 people, costing the agency nearly R8bn and making personnel costs the biggest cost driver in its total expenditure of R11.7bn.
The PSA and Nehawu announced last week they would embark on a strike from Wednesday in support of a demand for wage hikes of 11.5% and 12%, respectively — above the 5.9% headline inflation rate forecast by the Reserve Bank for 2022.
The PSA is also demanding a R2,000 “token of appreciation” for its members as well as bursaries for dependants of employees who earn R700,000 a year or less.
Nehawu spokesperson Lwazi Nkolonzi said: “The employer has tabled this latest offer [of R500m].
“Nehawu is going to embark on a process of engaging its members on the latest offer, but that does not mean the strike is being called off or that the lunch-hour pickets are being called off.”
Sars spokesperson Siphithi Sibeko said: “As matters stand, Sars is continuing in negotiations with organised labour.
“We have a proposal to them and are waiting for the response before we take the next step.
“For now, that’s all we are willing to say.”
The unions have said the previous 0% offer was an insult to their members, who had to contend with the rising cost of living, which has seen the prices of basic services, food, fuel and electricity shoot through the roof.
Sars is a central pillar in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan to boost state coffers that were depleted by the spending frenzy in the past decade, which drove up government borrowing to unsustainable levels.
In April, Sars reported a R16.7bn surplus in revenue from what was estimated in the February budget.
A total of R1.563-trillion was collected, representing a 25% year-on-year increase.
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