The round of public sector wage talks could wrap up in the coming week, but the broader problem of state capacity, service delivery and professionalising the public service will linger.
Public sector wage talks edged closer to conclusion this week as unions mull the state’s latest offer for a 5% pay hike. The talks, which resumed late last year after the seventh administration had taken office, are still haunted by the formation of the government of national unity.
Unions representing the 1.3-million public servants were cautiously optimistic — having entered the stage with a pretentious demand for a whopping 12% increase, against the state’s opening offer of 3%.
The Centre for Risk Analysis last year released a report indicating that SA has the third-largest wage bill globally compared with its GDP. Yet, services are poor at best or nonexistent at worst — a legacy of former president Jacob Zuma’s disastrous stewardship of the country.
Unions argue that the reason for the shocking state of service delivery in places such as home affairs offices, hospitals and police stations is a lack of capacity. The Public Service Association’s Reuben Maleka said that the notion of a bloated public service was debunked at a 2023 conference organised by the public service & administration department.
According to Maleka, home affairs is only at 50% capacity and police stations are equally under-resourced. He has lauded the GNU ministers for grasping the dire issues facing public servants, particularly those on the front line of service delivery.
SA can also no longer afford to splurge on the public sector wage bill, as indicated by finance minister Enoch Godongwana in his medium-term budget policy statement last year. Godongwana, a former trade unionist, has taken a hardline approach in negotiations with unions since taking up the post in 2021.
Godongwana offered voluntary retirement packages to public servants over 55 to cut the wage bill and crucially, refresh the public service. The government has provided R11bn over the next two years for voluntary early retirement packages for public servants to reduce the wage bill, which constituted 32% of the state’s spending in 2023/24.
But this is hardly enough to completely overhaul the state or deliver what President Cyril Ramaphosa has been promising since 2018, of a professionalised, modern, capable developmental state.
While frameworks for professionalising the public service were issued as far back as 2022, there has been little visible change in the experience of government by citizens.
Much more needs to be done and the GNU provides an opportunity for the seventh administration to get things moving. Professionalising the public service and creating a capable state forms part of the Statement of Intent signed by the 10 parties who are now included in the government.
GNU partners have an opportunity to drill down into the statistics and bowels of offices, stations, hospitals and prisons to uncover where the bureaucracy’s bloat and dismal performance originate, hopefully fixing it urgently.
Exactly how the GNU will accomplish this is another much-anticipated item expected to form part of the coalition government’s medium-term development plan, which is now long overdue.
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