Government employees set for pay hikes - high earners too

The Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers has recommended a 5-6 percent increase in salaries for the public service.

Unlike the private sector, where some companies are imposing a freeze on salary increases for its top earners, those working for the state can expect inflation-linked increases for 2014/2015.

The Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers said in a statement today it had recommended increases based on factors including the consumer inflation data, the economic and social environment and "inputs from key stakeholders".

The Commission proposed a 5% adjustment for public office bearers earning more than R1 million a year and 6% for public office bearers earning less than R1 million.

These recommendations had been proposed to the President and Parliament, it said.

However, government is engaged in wage talks with 16 public sector trade unions - who are demanding a wage  increase of 15%.

This is despite economists recommending that government reign in its ever-burgeoning wage bill.

At a presentation to parliament last year, economists noted that the government's budgeted wage bill  had increased by an average of 12.4% each year between 2007-08 (R195 billion) and 2014-15 (R441 billion). Business Day reported that the number of national and provincial  public servants last June totalled 1.6-million employees.

The Times previously reported that Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene has frozen the personnel budgets of all government departments.

He also pegged spending on non-essential goods and services at this year's levels. Nene said that civil servants should forget about business-class flights, using expensive catering for meetings and paying for consultants to lighten their workload.

He aims to save as much as R1.3-billion over the next two years.

Similar measures introduced in February last year have already saved the government purse R500-million in only eight months, Nene said.

But this is small change compared to the impact state salary increases could have. In his medium-term budget, Nene cautioned: "We are operating in a very constrained fiscal environment".