Public sector wage bill ‘out of control’

not taken to rein in the wage bill. She recalled how failure to deliver key services as a result of salaries had plunged other countries into chaos. “We’ve gone above the ceiling … it should be scary for South Africans, but maybe not to the unions. But to the general [population] that should be scary.

“If you look at wages and think we take from grants to pay salaries, I don’t know what we will do on the day that our people revolt against government, its employees and political parties. It has happened in many other countries,” she said.

She said she could not guarantee the government would not resort to freezing posts as she weighed different variables that could aid the crisis.

In the 2017 Budget Review, the government said that it expected the wage bill to stabilise, largely as a result of measures to reduce appointments in noncritical posts.

Performance-review mechanisms would have to be reviewed, while “weeding out” nonperformers was also in Dlodlo’s sights. This would be done to ensure that members of the public got value for money.

During the department’s budget speech last week, the minister detailed interventions that would help the government navigate the waters around its wage bill in the context of a constrained fiscus. These included limitations to the number of staff employed in private offices of ministers and lifestyle audits on public servants.

“We are trying to manage that [wage bill] … it’s not going to end here,” she said.

“We are labour and employer at the behest of the people of SA and that is what we need to understand.

“This is a conversation I will take to South Africans; it is their conversations,” she said.

She planned to host forums with members of the public when the deal was finalised to explain the effect of the wage agreement on the country and its economy.

“The problems are farreaching for the sustainability of this country and its economy, and I think every adult in SA has a responsibility to ensure that we all leave a future for our children that does not look as bleak as it does now,” she said.