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Don't blame workers for fiscal crisis, Cosatu tells ‘provocative’ Mboweni

Details

cosatuBusinessLive reports that labour federation Cosatu has accused finance minister Tito Mboweni of blaming government workers for the "fiscal crisis" after he singled out the public sector wage bill as the biggest risk facing the public purse.  

Reacting to Mboweni's Medium Term Budget Policy Statement‚ Cosatu's Matthew Parks said it was "provocative" for Mboweni to blame workers' demands for pressures facing the national budget.  Government is to spend more than R500-billion on the salaries of civil servants‚ while wage increases for the next three years are R30bn above budget and Mboweni has not set aside any money for 2019 wage negotiations.  Parks commented:  “It is not workers who looted Eskom‚ built Nkandla‚ sent money to Dubai.  Yet now we hear government complaining about nurses‚ teachers‚ police officers ... wanting to earn a living wage.”  He went on to say:  We do not hear government complaining about the R2.4-million that ministers earn or the millions we spend flying their wives overseas…  We do not hear government say they are imposing a freeze on the salaries of SOE CEOs and management.  We heard nothing about how they will reduce the massive wage gap in the public sector."  Mboweni did in fact address the issue of the bloated cabinet at an earlier media conference before presenting his budget‚ saying it did not make economic‚ financial and political sense to have a national executive comprising of more than 70 ministers and deputy ministers.

  • Read this report by Thabo Mokone in full at TimesLive
  • Read too, Mboweni wants to cut bloated cabinet to 25, at Sunday Times
  • And also, Ballooning wage bill puts huge pressure on fiscus, at Business Report


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