South Africa’s powerful trade union movement has called on the Government to cut the salaries of Ministers and senior officials instead of freezing increases for police officers and teachers.
Commenting on the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) before Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance, spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Costau), Matthew Parks (pictured) urged a cap on the “huge wages” of management.
Treasury official, Edgar Sishi fired back, saying Public Servants were overpaid.
“The remuneration for Public Servants tends to be higher now than it is in the private sector,” Mr Sishi said.
“More than 95 per cent of Public Servants now earn more than 150 per cent above the average wage of private sector taxpayers,” he said.
Prominent financial journalist, Charlotte Kilbane expressed doubts that Minister for Finance, Tito Mboweni could do anything in the budgetary process that would not further alienate and inflame organised labour.
“He has to attempt to extract efficiency out of the bureaucracy, and balance the need to cut Government spending, whilst simultaneously funding a massive infrastructure build plan, aimed at kick-starting the economy,” Ms Kilbane said.
Mr Mboweni himself likened his task to trying to plug “the gaping mouth of a hippo”.
“South Africa has to stop spending at the rate it is, or face a financial disaster not too far down the road,” Mr Mboweni said.
Pretoria, 9 November 2020
