We know the following fact, thanks to Stats SA’s quarterly employment survey for the first quarter of this year: the average salary in South Africa is R25,304 a month, a 2.7% drop from the previous quarter. That’s R303,648 a year.
We also know, thanks to finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s midterm budget speech on Wednesday, that there are 55,000 government employees earning more than R1m a year. Godongwana told us the number had shot up from 10,000 to 55,000 in the past decade. The reason? Higher than inflation increases for our dear public servants between 2013/14 and 2023/24. That may leave a slightly sour taste in the mouths of hardworking, taxpaying middle-class South Africans, as they dodge potholes and broken traffic lights on their way to work, planning their dinner preparations according to the load-shedding schedule of the day.
These salary increases happened while most people’s pay failed to grow in line with the rising cost of living. In fact, according to Stats SA, wages paid to employees decreased by R11.8bn from December to March, probably also an indication of a shrinking workforce in a dire economy. Not to mention the b-word: the amount paid in bonuses decreased by a whopping R22.5bn over the same period. Add to that an almost 5% increase in the repo rate over the past two years, South Africans are sinking further into debt. According to SA Reward Association member Kirk Kruger, in a report on BusinessTech, a middle-class earner with a R1.5m bond, a R300,000 car loan and a R50,000 personal loan now pays almost R5,500 extra a month just on loan repayments, compared with November 2021.
Meanwhile, our fat cat public servants — or at least 55,000 of them — are living comfortably. Godongwana said about half (48%) of government employees earned between R350,001 and R600,000 in 2023/24. This is also above the average salary measured by Stats SA. The medium-term budget policy statement warned the escalation of the public service wage bill was starting to affect funding to support vulnerable households and investments to kick-start the economy.
There is nothing wrong with rewarding deserving employees adequately, but it is wrong to reward people regardless of whether they perform their duties. It is also wrong to reward state employees at the cost of helping the poor and investing in a stable financial future for our country.
TimesLIVE Premium this past week reported on a community in Lenasia, south of Soweto, plotting to boycott municipal services bills. Residents say they even have to fill their own potholes and pay for it.
“We are just paying the municipality and have nothing to show for it,” said resident Goolam Farid. Other parts of the country are going through the same thought processes. The Westville Ratepayers' Association in Durban stopped paying for their services from July 31 while the Vereeniging Business Corporation took a similar decision against the Emfuleni municipality. These residents are all in the same boat: paying money to a government entity they can scarcely afford in the current climate — with nothing to show for it.
Imagine their reaction when they read about the public service millionaires. What would Godongwana say to them? He should say, we are sorry, this is not how it is supposed to be and we will find ways to change the situation. We will no longer give our employees above-inflation increases. We will no longer sit back and watch vulnerable households suffer because our funds to support them are drying up. We will implement performance-based rewards, to ensure our state becomes synonymous with competent service delivery. And we will do what it takes to grow our economy so your daily hardships can dissipate.
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