Mboweni appears to be heading for clash with unions fearing lay-offs

JUST weeks into his job, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni appears to be on a collision course with unions who fear retrenchments and an attempt to reduce the wages of ordinary public servants.

Delivering his maiden mid-term Budget in Parliament on Wednesday, Mboweni said the Treasury had not allocated a budget to meet the public service wage agreement, which was reached early this year. He said the agreement “exceeds budgeted baselines by about R30.2 billion over the medium term”.

Mboweni had said the provincial and national departments would have to deal with salary costs “within their own baseline” with the assistance of the Department of Public Service and Administration.

Unions Sadtu, Cosatu and the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) interpreted Mboweni’s statement as an attack on government workers.

Saftu spokesperson Patrick Craven said Mboweni’s statement meant that the salary budget allocated in February would “remain exactly as it was”.

“This means that if government departments want to pay their staff more in terms of the agreement they will have to find that money from other sources. This can lead to retrenchments which we will be opposed to,” said Craven.

Saftu and other unions would engage in a campaign against what he called an attack on workers.

“There will be protests, as we have already agreed in principle that there will be a three-day national stoppage on all the issues such as unemployment, poverty and inequality,” he said.

A date for the three-day national protest was yet to be decided, “but we will be announcing it shortly”.

“Since this is an issue that affects all workers we will encourage all workers to join the campaign,” said Craven.

Sadtu, the biggest teachers’ union in the country, said it required clarity on Mboweni’s speech regarding public service wages.

“Minister Mboweni left us unsettled when he announced that the 2018 public service wage agreement exceeds budgeted baselines by R30.2bn and that they have not allocated additional money for this,” read a Sadtu statement.

Sadtu deputy general secretary Nkosinathi Dolopi accused Mboweni of punishing lower level public servants for wasteful expenditure carried out by senior government officials.

“We will not allow anyone to lose his job. We cannot fold our arms when there is a campaign to reduce the number of public servants.

“Ordinary public servants at the coalface are not the cause of the bloated structure. The Cabinet is bloated, as we have too many ministers and deputies.

“They have too many perks, including cars, two offices – one in Cape Town and another in Pretoria. Director-generals and deputy director-generals are earning a lot of money,” Dolopi said.

Cosatu said: “It is not workers who looted Eskom, built Nkandla or sent the money to Dubai.

“Workers do not fly their spouses around the world at government expense so we do not expect to hear government complaining about overworked nurses, teachers, police officers wanting to earn a living wage. We heard nothing about how they will reduce the massive wage gap in the public sector.”