A crucial test for the administration of President Cyril Ramaphosa will be how it deals with the ballooning public sector wage bill that threatens to eat into the ability of departments to deliver services, the Institute of Race Relations said. Releasing a report on SA’s bloated and costly public service, head of the institute’s politics and governance department, Gareth van Onselen, said the public sector wage bill needed to be brought under control. The last thing the governing ANC wanted was to wage a war with the trade unions, he said. "Unless someone is willing to take a hard line, and soon, it [the wage bill] is set to become the defining obstacle to economic growth," Van Onselen warned. Wage negotiations between the government and public sector trade unions were under way in the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council. Their outcome, he said, "will go some way towards revealing just how much influence the president wielded". But Public Servants Association deputy gener...

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