Fin24 reports that responding to questions in the National Assembly, Deputy President David Mabuza on Thursday said that the head count in the public service would have to be reduced eventually as the public wage bill was unsustainable.  

“The president has announced in his State of the Nation Address that we are going to reconfigure government.  That process is happening and he will announce on it in due course.  We have looked at this and realised that, probably, we need to scale down the public service,” Mabuza said.  He did not explain how or when this would take place.  The deputy president's remarks were in line with statements made by Minister of Public Service and Administration Ayanda Dlodlo about the need for severance packages and early retirement without penalties to shrink the size of the public service.  She has rejected reports of large scale retrenchments in the public service.  Her department has said in the next five years government would have to consider reducing the headcount of the public service through means of natural attrition and severance packages, but clarified that there were no concrete plans to retrench public servants.

• Read this report by Khulekani Magubane in full at Fin24

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