Wage deal public servants want may bust expenditure targets, Gigaba warns in budget policy statement
A new wage deal for public servants that provides above-inflation salary increases without a cut in the number of state employees could jeopardise the government’s expenditure targets, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba warned earlier on Wednesday in his maiden medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS). His comments came as the government and labour prepared for tough wage negotiations ahead of the ANC’s elective conference in December. Unions have tabled a demand for a general salary increase of between 10% and 12% with the Public Sector Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, far higher than the provisions in the government’s spending plans. The medium-term expenditure framework provides for an overall increase of 7.3% a year for improving conditions of service. Many departments are already at risk of breaching this limit, even without increasing personnel numbers, Gigaba noted in the MTBPS. As a result, the public sector wage bill is increasingly crowding out other government spending an...
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