The outcry from trade unions against the 3% pay increase awarded to public office-bearers is a bit rich coming from unions whose public sector members recently won a 7.5% increase for this year. But they have a point.
There is something tone deaf about the pay increase for office-bearers, who include ministers, parliamentarians and other politicians as well as judges. The increase goes against Treasury’s recommendation of a 1.5% increase. It will add more millions to the R37bn of unbudgeted extra expenditure which the government’s wage settlement with public sector unions is already going to cost it. It doesn’t make finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s task of stabilising public debt any easier at a time when the outlook for economic growth and tax collections is not looking good. Nor is there much reason to expect it will do anything to improve the services the government delivers to SA’s citizens, especially to its poor.
One might hope the politicians and political appointees who count as public office-bearers would do a better job of running the country if they have a bit more in their collective pockets. But they are not front-line teachers or nurses, nor are they the senior civil servants who run government departments and are responsible for implementing government policy. Those senior civil servants are not covered by the public sector wage deal nor by the dispensation for public office-bearers and they have got the short straw in recent years, often getting no pay hikes at all.
It is worth noting that the 7.5% the unionised workers won was really 3.3% because it incorporated a cash gratuity awarded last year that had been due to end this year. And with inflation projected to stay well above 4.5% for a year or more, these pay hikes don’t compensate for the cost of living. But the government still cannot afford them. The government’s personnel costs are well over a third of its total spending and have been one of the leading drivers of its ballooning debt over the past decade.
Efforts have been made to rein in the wage bill in the past three years, but this has often come at the expense of front-line staff and service delivery. Godongwana made it clear earlier this year that the unbudgeted pay hikes would mean there would have to be trade-offs. Non-critical posts would not be filled and public entities and public programmes would have to be cut.
In this environment it is not clear why the independent commission, which determines pay for public office-bearers, recommended a 3.8% increase nor why President Cyril Ramaphosa signed off on an increase that was only slightly lower at 3%. Some of the office-bearers no doubt have scarce skills — judges for example — but most of the others are simply political appointees or elected officials, some of whom won’t even be there after next year’s general election.
A review of the whole structure of the public service is urgently needed, and that must include a review of the bloated size of the cabinet and its related office-bearers and pay structures as well as the multiple public enterprises and public entities beyond government itself. With SA’s economy in decline and it’s fiscal position as fragile as ever, it is time for tough decisions on personnel and pay.
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