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MANZINI – The implementation of the salary review will be delayed as the consultant is still not engaged.

Minister of Public Service Mabulala Maseko blamed the deadlock on the agenda of the joint negotiation forum (JNF) for the delay of when civil servants may be offered a salary review based on how inflation had corroded their salaries.

The salary review, which ought to have been engaged last year, has a budget of E15 million, in order to recruit a consultant. This is in addition of the E200 million which was budgeted for the cost-of-living adjustment (ColA) and E55 million for the 2016 Salary Review Appeals.

“Public servants should stop running away from the negotiations table, but should negotiate in good faith. They should also refrain from political motivated agendas, but focus on bread and butter issues. They shouldn’t milk the associations’ funds through lengthy standoffs that would result to exorbitant claims,” said the minister.

Negotiations

He said if it were his way, the bread and butter issues would have taken precedence in the negotiations such that the salary review consultant would ‘have started his/ her work in April 2022’.

Maseko said this would have allowed the consultant to complete the task at hand in April next year such that it would have given all parties to negotiate its implementation.

“Why not let all the things that have a budget in this financial year proceed so that we start negotiating on how we address the gaps?” he asked rhetorically.

He said the sad part was that prices were still going to soar as the Russia – Ukraine war continued and civil servants, just like government would be affected adversely.

Maseko, who was asked if government could afford CoLA equivalent to inflation annually, said what civil servants needed to understand was that when costs increased, government did not get any extra money but in fact lost a lot.

Making an example, he said: “When fuel increases, fewer people refuel their vehicles, which means that government is losing on tax.”

It is worth noting that tax collection is one of the ways government finances its

budget.

Meanwhile, the minister said civil servants should appreciate the little that was offered, as it had not reached a point where retrenchments were a better option in order to deal with the bloated wage bill.

He referenced to the ongoing challenges in Sri Lanka where the government could no longer remunerate civil servants.

Following that, some civil servants had a meeting on Friday and claimed that in the past five years; their salaries had been corroded by 25.03 per cent inflation.

This, the public servants believed, rendered the current offer by government meagre to the cost of living; more so with the geopolitics of Russia-Ukraine affecting food commodities and transport cost. Maseko said generally speaking, government paid better salaries compared to the private sector of late.