This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
News24 reports that President Cyril Ramaphosa has sought to dismiss the notion that Members of Parliament were "living it up" and said they often "struggle to make ends meet".
In an engagement with the media on Thursday, Ramaphosa said MPs have been "cut to the bone because they have had no meaningful increase for quite a while". This was said despite the president having signed off on a 2.8% increase for ordinary MPs, on top of their million-plus rand packages. The president was asked, given the constraints facing the public purse, whether benefits awarded to MPs and ministers should be revisited. He said: “I have seen Members of Parliament, who publicly seem to be living it up, but they are not. The work we take on or impose on them as MPs is quite costly, many of them don't end up making ends meet.” He explained this was because they usually had to have two houses - one near Parliament and one where they came from. The president said only if SA’s economic situation worsened would the perks of MPs and public representatives be looked at again. He did not weigh in on a question that the public purse was used to fund former ministers. He did, however, defend public funds being used to ferry ministers across the country. Between 2014 and 2020, the taxpayer forked out R45.3 million in business class travel for former ministers, deputies, premiers and their spouses,
- Read the original of the report in the above regard by Qaanitah Hunter at News24
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page