Trevor Nel, in his article (Various factors can change the reporting methods on wage gap, June 6), is right to say there is widespread concern globally about rising income inequality, and that there is a common perception that there is an unnecessary large gap between CEO remuneration and general staff pay. What is also correct is that CEO remuneration is not confined to the salary. There are also short-term bonuses and long-term incentives such as share-based payments. For instance, the CEO of Standard Bank received R7m in cash for 2017, but his total package was R50m. What is more, the top 60 officials all got proportional bonuses, so the total amount for management was huge. I have no idea what the general staff pay is like, but the unequal rewards must be very large. So Nel is right to look at inequalities within firms to see the trends. But the problem of rising inequality in SA goes beyond individual firms. The real comparison is between the R50m a year and the R42,000 of the ...
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