Engineering News reports that national government is developing a comprehensive public-sector remuneration strategy for the medium to long term.

This will apply to the country’s 1.33-million public servants employed in departments, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), public entities and local government. The strategy will seek to better balance competing interests on the basis of fairness, equity and affordability, the National Treasury indicated in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), which was presented by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana on Thursday. The MTBPS made provision for an additional allocation of R20.5-billion in 2022/23 for wage bill adjustments. Most of the adjustments are to cater for the higher-than-budgeted public sector wage agreement. The wage bill averages about 35% of government’s non-interest expenditure and has been growing at a rate higher than nominal gross domestic product every year since 2007/8, with 2013/14 as an exception. Although the wage growth moderation in 2020/21 has helped to make compensation spending growth more sustainable, the extent to which this will continue depends on the outcome of ongoing wage negotiations. It will also depend on whether the Constitutional Court upholds the decision of the Labour Appeal Court, which held that government was within its rights not to implement the final leg of the three-year 2018 wage agreement, owing to Treasury not having affirmed its affordability. The MTBPS noted that, should it be necessary to implement the final leg of the 2018 wage agreement retroactively, additional measures would be required.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Engineering News
• Read too, Civil servants ‘ready for action’ over pay rise, says Nehawu, at The Citizen

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