Public service cuts should target top-end earners, say Cosatu and DA

THE public sector wage bill has drawn criticism from opposition parties, with Cosatu sticking to its guns that employees should not be held responsible for the tight fiscal space.

Cosatu’s parliamentary co-ordinator, Matthew Parks, told the joint committees on finance yesterday that the number of public sector workers had not increased significantly in the past 25 years of democracy. While in 1994 there were 1 million public servants, this number was sitting at 1.1million today.

But DA MP Geordin Hill-Lewis said the wage bill was unsustainable.

The National Treasury has been trying over the past few years to cut the public sector wage bill.

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni conceded in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement last week there had been few people willing to take early retirement. In the MTBS review, it showed that the public sector wage bill woudl increase from R630 billion in the current financial year to R717bn in the 2021/22 financial period.

Parks said the public service was not bloated but instead bloated at the top (executive). He said in 1994, there were 34 million people and 1 million public servants. However, today there were 57m people with 1.1m public servants.

Hill-Lewis said the government should focus on the 29 000 people who earned above R1m a year. He said the government would realise savings there. Parks said Cosatu agreed.

Some of the ANC MPs in Parliament this week have defended the public servants who earn over R1m.

Hill-Lewis said the government needed to cut spending.

“When you have a debt to GDP of 70%, you have to get public expenditure under control… The solution is to cut waste in the public sector,” he said.

Mboweni last week said that they could not get many people to take early retirement, and that only 4000 people had done so. This was a far cry from their target of 30000.

Parks said there was no need to target low-income workers in the public service, and that there were still vacancies in the critical areas of health and police.

The government implemented the freezing of posts a few years ago as part of cost-containment measures.