LETTER: Tips for the finance minister
A voluntary pay reduction for all public servants and an additional 10% Eskom levy for taxpayers could help avert the disaster facing SA
At this time of the year there’s no shortage of advice for the minister of finance — though it’s not advice he needs but political will, something always in short supply in an election year. The Eskom crisis should focus everyone’s minds: if it runs its course, it will only be a matter of time before political sovereignty is surrendered to creditors as the IMF steps in. When that happens, the first thing to go will be the bloated public service, whose vast salary bill is one of the reasons why there’s no money to fix the failing infrastructure. Faced with the inevitability of all this, perhaps the minister (and the ANC) would like to consider a few crisis measures. The first would be a 20% “voluntary” pay reduction for all public servants. This could be loaded so the more highly paid surrender a higher percentage and those on the lower tiers slightly less. Then there could be an additional 10% Eskom levy imposed on all taxpayers (except public servants) and which, like the public-se...
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