Public servants in dark with virus fight ahead
Now is not a good time for the government to pick a fight with public servants. But when a good proportion of the country’s 1.2-million public servants wake up on Wednesday, one of the first things they will notice is that they have not been paid their annual wage increase.
They will learn this not from their employer, which is yet to communicate with them about its intention, but through their payday banking notifications, which for most will be on the 15th of the month. While the rest of the world applaud their front-line health workers daily, SA will tell doctors, nurses, teachers and police that their sacrifices — which have only just begun — are not that appreciated.
The Covid-19 crisis makes the government’s decision not to honour its commitment to the three-year wage deal more injurious. Now, more than ever, public servants are being asked to put their lives on the line. But the black swan aspect of this event aside, the political mismanagement of the public sector wage negotiations had already planted the seeds of discontent among employees.
There is certainly a case to be made to slow wage growth in the public sector. Over the past 10 years, wages have risen an average of 3.4% above inflation. The growth in the wage bill has increasingly crowded out spending on investment, which is important for economic growth. But the important point here is that the case has not been made to the employees themselves.
Public servants understand what happened in SA over the past decade very differently to the way economists, investors and ratings agencies see it. Corruption, waste and plunder of public resources have endangered public finances. Now they are being asked to pay for the excesses of the political elite.
In his last public statements two weeks ago, public service & administration minister Senzo Mchunu said he noted the uncertainty around the matter of the wage increase. Ambiguous at best, but more accurately dishonest, Mchunu said: “We want to reiterate that government remains committed to the implementation of the 2018 wage agreement notwithstanding the aforesaid difficulties, AT STAKE IS HOW TO DO IT, and this matters most.”
What Mchunu meant to say though was the opposite: the government does not intend to implement the wage increase. This we know because public servants’ pay scales are enormously bureaucratic and technical and each year new “translation tables” are published. As this has not been done, say union leaders, the assumption is that wages will remain the same.
SA’s Covid-19 outbreak is slowly ticking up. While the hospitals are not under pressure yet — in fact they are ominously empty — we have a long haul ahead.
Having slowed the outbreak with the lockdown and contained the imported dimension, epidemiologists and health experts agree: SA will not escape the pain that has been inflicted on far wealthier countries.
The health department, which previously predicted that a three-week lockdown would see the epidemic peak in July, said last week in a presentation to parliament that a five-week lockdown would result in a peak in September. Whether this projection is accurate — the basis on which it is arrived at is unclear as we have no idea what the government has in mind when the five weeks end — the general point remains: the mountain is yet to be climbed.
With most of the world in lockdown, everyone is looking at what happens afterwards. In the US and UK, a consensus is emerging: the lifting of the lockdown will undoubtedly lead to a resurgence of the virus. As the lockdown must be lifted if the economy and people are to survive, the only way to do so is along with mass testing.
In the UK and the US, the numbers being talked about are mind-boggling. British statistician and epidemiologist Julian Peto suggests weekly testing of the entire population, and in the US economics Nobel prize winner Paul Romer says everyone should be tested every two weeks. This will mean millions of tests each day.
SA has no choice but to go this route. This will be particularly true in densely populated areas, where mass and continuous testing is the only viable strategy to contain the outbreak. Modelling by the department of health suggests that ramping up testing to 36,000 a day will put it in reach of containment.
Large numbers of health workers and police will be required to implement this strategy. President Cyril Ramaphosa has been very effective in his communication with the public. It is important he takes time out soon to speak to the troops and inspire them too.