Parliamentary portfolio committee chairperson on cooperative governance and traditional affairs‚ Richard Mdakane‚ would be asked to call minister Pravin Gordhan to brief the committee on the rationale for the wage increases for municipal managers and directors‚ and the affordability thereof to municipalities‚ the Democratic Alliance (DA) said.
Municipal managers and senior staff in local authorities are set to enjoy salary increases following the recategorisation of municipalities by the department.
“It is unjustifiable that the new municipal mangers in category 8-9 municipalities may earn up to R3.3-million (a year)‚” Kevin Mileham DA MP said on Wednesday.
“The public sector wage bill currently stands at an astonishing R400-billion. The projected total for the 2016/17 financial year will R430-billion - this represents 35‚5% of the governments total budget.
“South Africa can simply not afford a public wage bill that continues to balloon unabated‚” Mileham said.
“This is the third remuneration adjustment for senior municipal officials in less than a year. It is a major concern that most municipalities are spending a bigger proportion of their total income on paying salaries.
“These pay hikes must come with more responsibility and officials must be held accountable if they fail to deliver.
"Contracts of municipal managers must be linked to the delivery of services‚ and salaries should be based on affordability to the relevant local municipality.
“Money should rather be given to municipalities for the betterment of service delivery projects‚ instead of increasing the salaries municipal officials.”
Mileham said to make matters worse‚ the Auditor General in the latest Consolidated General Report on the Audit Outcomes of Local Government‚ revealed that a fifth of the country’s municipal managers currently did not even meet the minimum competency requirements.
RDM News Wire.
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