Sunday Independent writes that Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s position on the hefty public sector wage bill straining the fiscus has sparked debate about cutting government expenditure.  

Some trade unions and civil society organisations have called for the reduction of the executive as one of the cost-cutting measures.  The SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) said while it supported the reduction of the Cabinet, any job cuts would be met with fierce opposition.  General secretary Zwelinzima Vavi commented:  “We support the cutting down of the executive.  However, we want anybody that may be negatively impacted upon to be retrained and redeployed.  The public service is running short of 129,000 jobs as we speak, they can’t afford to lose one person.  They must redeploy people into those vacancies.”  Cosatu noted that reducing the Cabinet would not necessarily translate into job cuts as members could be redeployed to other departments or state entities.  Analyst Mamokgethi Molopyane also noted that downsizing the cabinet would not necessarily result in savings, saying:  “I don’t expect unions to have a face-off with government should cabinet be downsized.  The only time a face-off would happen is if government workers are retrenched shortly after a cabinet downsizing.”  Gareth van Onselen of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) pointed out:  “Ministeries have relatively small staff numbers and it is in actual departments where most staff reside.  So cutting the number of ministries would be a powerful metaphor but if the president is serious, it will be whole departments that get cut.”

Read this report by Lerato Diale in full at Sunday Independent

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