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The director general of the National Treasury, Dondo Mogajane.
Ziyaad Douglas, Gallo Images
- The unions want the government to honor their wage agreement.
- The public service wage deal could add the country 37.8 billion rand in additional debt.
- Finance Minister Tito Mboweni will present his medium-term budget policy statement later this month.
South Africa opposes an offer by the unions to force the state to abide by a public service wage agreement, warning that the agreement would impose on the country 37.8 billion rand of additional debt.
In April, the government reneged on an agreement to increase the salary of more than 1.2 million employees as part of an effort to stabilize state finances. The Association of Public Officials, which represents some 250,000 government workers, took the dispute to the Coordinating Council for Public Service Negotiations and the matter is now before the Labor Court.
PSA spokesman Reuben Maleka and South African Democratic Teachers Union Secretary General Mugwena Maluleke said their organizations oppose the government. The South African Congress of Trade Unions, the country’s largest federation of labor groups, called for protests on Friday next week to back its demands that the government abide by its pay deal.
Freezing the payment of civil servants is fundamental to the plans of the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, to cut public spending by R230,000 million over the next two years to stop the increase in debt. About a third of the government’s annual budget of R1.95 billion is spent on salaries.
Mboweni is scheduled to present his medium-term budget later this month.
‘Increase unaffordable’
Increasing the salaries of government employees is unaffordable, particularly given the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on state finances, Treasury CEO Dondo Mogajane said in an affidavit on July 17.
“The government is forced by the Covid-19 pandemic to spend public funds (which are already in deficit) to alleviate the plight of the poor and vulnerable,” he said. “Unfortunately, the government simply cannot in these circumstances comply with the applicant’s demand for additional increases.”
Administration and Public Service Minister Senzo Mchunu backed the Treasury in an affidavit on September 25.
Mboweni presented an emergency budget in June in which he pointed to a primary surplus for 2023/24. This month’s announcement is expected to describe spending cuts and revenue adjustment measures in the amount of approximately R250 billion over the next two years.
Mogajane emphasized that while the government cannot afford to increase the salary of civil servants, employees do not face pay cuts like some in the private sector.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has come at a great cost to employment in the private sector, and many remaining employees do not receive raises or even experience pay cuts to preserve employment,” he said. “In contrast, the jobs of the applicant members are not threatened. Nor are their salaries reduced.”
