Municipal wage hikes outrage

A 6.4% increase mooted for Joburg councillors causes an outcry.

Cash-stumped residents left to cover the municipality’s spending wishes.

The City of Joburg plans to vote a 6.4% pay increase for its councillors, much to the outrage of residents. But Steve Tshwete municipality in Mpumalanga has gone one better, sneaking through a 48% increase for its municipal manager and a 6.25% increase for the rest of the staff. And all this during lockdown, when eight out of 10 South Africans have suffered a drop in income averaging R7 500, according to TransUnion.

Municipalities are sheltering behind three-year agreements concluded in 2018 with the SA Local

Government Association that allow for staff pay increases of the consumer price index plus 1.25% this year, and a home owners’ allowance increase of 7%. But this agreement was concluded well before the lockdown, leaving cashstumped residents to cover the municipality’s spending wishes.

“This budget bears no relation to the reality facing residents,” said Rob Hutchinson, campaign head at participative democracy nonprofit Dear South Africa.

Six senior managers of Steve Tshwete municipality voted themselves an average 16.8% increase. But the real whopper is the municipal manager, whose salary was bumped up by 48%.

Residents of the municipality will be lumped with an average increase of 9.5% on property rates, and increases of 8.1% for sewerage, 6.7% for refuse collection, 6% for water and 6.3% for electricity.

“It is unconscionable for Steve

Tshwete municipality to vote itself a 6.25% increase in staff pay when the country is going through incredible difficulties,” said Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse project manager Tim Tyrrell.

“People have lost their jobs and most people have had to take a pay cut because of the lockdown, yet here we have municipal executives agreeing on a budget, seemingly without the slightest concern for the plight of their own residents.”

Tyrrell said perhaps it was time to impose zero-based budgeting on municipalities, as Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has suggested for National Treasury.

Zero-based budgeting assumes each new year starts with a blank slate, rather than the usual method of applying a percentage increase to each expenditure item in the previous year’s budget.

Tyrrell said the municipal manager’s salary appears to have been brought into line with salaries of similar managers in other municipalities, but said the timing of the 48% increase was a slap in the face for ordinary people.

Hutchinson said this was yet another case of extreme insensitivity for the economic plight of the country.

“We need to pay attention to the budgets of the 257 municipalities around the country, as these inflation-plus budgets seem to [be] rather routine, with councillors voting themselves increases in complete disregard for the ability of residents to pay.”

Municipal Money, a database of municipalities operated by National Treasury to increase transparency and strengthen civil oversight, shows Steve Tshwete municipality spent just 1.18% of its property plant and equipment budget on repairs and maintenance, against the recommended level of 8%.

An increasingly common feature of municipal financial management is to cannibalise the repairs and maintenance budget for staff pay or favoured projects.

Budget bears no relation to the reality facing residents