Western Cape finance MEC Ivan Meyer has bemoaned the country’s escalating wage bill, saying it is not sustainable. Tabling the Western Cape government’s medium-term budget policy statement on Thursday, Meyer said: "One of the hard truths in South Africa is that the South African government wage bill, plus total social grants plus debt servicing equals 69% of government expenditure. This is not a sustainable fiscal path." SA’s public service costs about 10% of GDP. According to figures released on Thursday by Statistics SA, government spending on employee compensation increased by more than R40bn from R473bn in the 2013-14 financial year to R514bn in 2014-15. The report showed that the R40bn increase was largely due to an increase in the wage bill of provincial governments‚ which shot up by R18bn.
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