BusinessLive reports that the government has failed to honour a wage agreement to increase the salaries of public sector workers, despite public service and administration minister Senzo Mchunu saying in March that it was committed to doing so.
While the government did put a revised offer of a 4.4% pay increase for some levels of workers, unions previously rejected this as it reneged on a multi-term agreement signed in 2018. April salaries were paid to a first batch of public servants on Wednesday, but “sadly there are no adjustments”, said Riefdah Ajam of the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa). Godfrey Selematsela, Fedusa president, added: “Indeed, there are no salary increases as per the agreement. I’m preparing to have a virtual meeting with our public sector unions for a way forward.” In the 2018 deal, the government agreed to increase the pay of level 1-8 employees by CPI plus 1% and level 9-16 employees by CPI plus 0.5%. In February, the government announced its plans to cut the public sector wage bill by more than R160bn over the next three years. Renegotiating the third year of the wage agreement is projected to cut R37.8bn from the wage bill, or just 1.5% in real terms, in 2020.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive
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