SOUTH AFRICA
The Minister in charge of South Africa’s Public Service has rejected claims that 30,000 workers were to be laid off as “misleading” and “creating a state of panic in the Public Service”.
Ayanda Dlodlo (pictured) acknowledged there were plans for a restructure, but said no labour unions had been engaged and that PS staff could “rest assured” there were no plans for mass retrenchments.
She said in a series of tweets that while it was true the Government was considering employer initiated severance packages and early retirement without penalties, the projects were still in the early stages.
“I assure Public Servants that Government does not have a plan to retrench Public Servants,” Ms Dlodlo said.
Newspaper reports had claimed retrenchments would take place over three years and could save up to R20 billion ($A1.88 billion), with R4 billion ($A38 million) set aside for severance packages.
Ms Dlodlo said the reports were a complete misrepresentation of the Government’s program in relation to initiatives to manage the public sector wage bill.
She said there were plans to streamline service delivery, cutting expenses by improving performance.
The Government recently signed a three-year multi-term Public Service wage agreement, which sets aside R110 billion ($A10.3 billion) for salary adjustments. This exceeds the 2018 medium term expenditure forecast by R30 billion ($A2.8 billion).
In a separate report, the Public Service and Administration Department said there was a need for “unavoidable and difficult choices” to deal with the rising public sector wage bill.
In a statement, the Department said it would be “meticulous” in rolling out any cost savings programs.
Pretoria, 14 August, 2018
