Popcru slams Treasury for using 'bloated wage bill' as scapegoat

Police and prisons civil rights union Popcru says the conditions in which workers and the poor live are akin to “wartime statistics” and a plight which the National Treasury has decided to ignore.

The trade union thrashed the medium-term budget policy statement delivered by finance minister Enoch Godongwana last week, saying the GNU's first fiscal statement was tone deaf.

In a political overview presented to the union's central executive committee, Popcru president Thulani Ngwenya criticised the Treasury for remaining “fixated on a failed fiscal consolidation trajectory”.

“This is being deepened through fiscal anchoring policies. GDP growth has been stagnant and low, proving that the façade of business and private sector interventions in the sixth administration have not yielded anything of substance, nor in the seventh administration.”

He slammed the constant scapegoating by Treasury, saying that they use the public service wage bill as an excuse for the country's economic woes.

“They claim it is bloated and out of control and that there need to be “trade-offs”. By “trade-offs”, the minister is referring to the inhumane annual below-inflation offer to workers. This false narrative peddled by the Treasury is supported by the GNU partners, with the DA openly championing the defunding of public services and the freezing of vital vacancies.”

Ngwenya pointed fingers at the cabinet itself for being double the size of the first GNU in 1994-1997, saying it would cost the fiscus at least R670m a year.

“At the beginning of the tenure of the GNU, National Treasury is already promising the public that it is going to further cut R80.6bn from the baseline of the non-interest expenditure allocations to government departments, which is likely to cause further cuts and degradation in the quality of social wage programmes supporting the working class and rural poor.”

The Popcru president called on the Treasury to stop making “pronouncements intended to predetermine the outcomes” of the collective bargaining process that is under way in the public service at the moment.

This follows the ongoing wage negotiations after the Treasury's rejection of the initial union demand of 12%, which was later revised to 7.5%.

The employer had started with a 3% offer, which it revised to 4.7%. 

Ngwenya said any pronouncements on the salaries, retirement arrangements and so on were merely hot-air as long as they had not been presented at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council [PSCBS].

“Therefore, matters of the additional R57.6bn to pay for the salaries of teachers, nurses and doctors, among many other critical services, must be left to the process that is under way at the PSCBS.

“The minister has admitted to the country that the public service wage bill has shrunk and not grown as a portion of the budget, from 35.7% to a projected 31.4%. This begs the question: why continue with austerity measures if this neoliberal mission has been accomplished?”

The union convenes its central executive committee meeting in Boksburg this week, its highest decision-making body between congresses.

The gathering is to develop, review and refine policies that directly impact its members — which include addressing issues related to working conditions, salaries, benefits and job security within the criminal justice cluster.

Popcru has invited alliance partners such as the ANC, SACP and Cosatu to address its delegates, as well as stakeholders in the sector to make representations.

“It allows representatives from different sectors of the criminal justice system — such as police, correctional services and traffic management — to voice their concerns and ensure that the union's actions align with the needs and aspirations of its members.

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