South Africans have every right to be seething to hear our politicians are getting a pay hike.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s go-ahead for the 3.8% salary increase for ministers and deputy ministers, MPs, premiers and members of provincial legislatures was published in the government gazette on January 9.
Under the revised salary scales, our chief in command’s salary breaches R3.5m, the deputy president will now earn R3.28m, cabinet ministers will receive R2.79m, while deputy ministers will pocket R2.29m.
The National Assembly speaker and National Council of Provinces (NCOP) chair will each take home R3.28m and their deputies R2.29m. The house chair of chairs will earn R2.18m.
The leader and chief whip of the main opposition, the MK Party, will now earn R1.86m, while other minority party leaders, including EFF leader Julius Malema, will receive R1.56m.
Parliamentary committee chairs will earn R1.73m, ordinary MPs and permanent NCOP delegates will receive R1.32m per year. The nine premiers will earn R2.63m, members of executive councils and provincial legislature speakers will be paid R2.3m, deputy speakers R1.86m and ordinary members of provincial legislatures R1.28m.
The dent in the public wage bill for politicians is enormous but infuriatingly far from justified.
Every corner of our provinces has lived the inefficiency and failure of our ministries in the past year and so news that the already inflated salaries of our politicians are to be boosted is sickening.
In the corporate world salary increases are linked to a number of indicators including inflation, with the main incentive being performance and there are consequences for a lack of performance.
So it begs the questions how do you justify this increase when the void of delivery is gaping?
Two weeks ago the Sunday Times reported nearly R1bn has been spent on school infrastructure in Gauteng yet all they have to show for it is two schools and a heap of blame thrown at contractors and historical systems. How will the politicians justify their increase to the children who have suffered the lack of decent education for years?
The lack of consequence management in our government is alarming and incompetence, neglect and failure should not be rewarded.
On Monday, 12 children and their families paid in blood for the recycled promise of fixing our country’s scholar transport system when an allegedly unlicensed taxi driver crashed into a truck on their way to school. Can the politicians answer to these grieving families?
Former Cape Town athlete Bulelwa Mtshagi was one of 26 people who were killed in violent incidents on the Cape Flats at the weekend, highlighting the escalating level of crime in the area. She was shot seven times in her Crossroads home on Friday. Ramaphosa expressed his sadness at the loss of life and condemned the violence, calling for urgent action to restore safety in affected communities. Which politician will ensure this is done?
Last week there was much jubilation when the matric national pass rate reached a record high. But on the flip side fewer learners, proportionally, are leaving school with results that open doors to university, only a third of candidates wrote mathematics, and performance in key gateway subjects declined. Of most concern is that roughly half of the children who entered grade 1 in 2014 never reached the final examination room in 2025. Who is answering for this?
A state of national disaster has been declared in Mpumalanga and Limpopo where devastating floods have claimed many lives and destroyed more than 1,300 houses, roads and public infrastructure. Recent wildfires in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape destroyed property, biodiversity and livelihoods, but our disaster management response is still underwhelming in the face of climate change. And yet again, no one is answering for this.
Cosatu rightly points out the hike in salaries is “shameful” because the increase is “dangerously out of touch with the lived realities of ordinary South Africans”.
The lack of consequence management in our government is alarming and incompetence. Neglect and failure should not be rewarded. Our elected public officials need to be reminded of this come local government elections.
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