Readers’Views

WRITE TO: PO BOX 1742, Saxonwold 2132. SMS: 33971 E-MAIL: letters@businesstimes.co.za.

Wait and see whether state and public sector get real about wages

We’ve already heard the predictable narrative from the unions, that SA now wants to put everything on the backs of public-sector workers.

Welcome to the real world!

The private sector has been quietly decimated as company after company has been restructured, downsized, liquidated and so on. Every time this has happened, workers have lost out on bonuses, increases and, all too often, their actual jobs.

Being an everyday occurrence, this devastation has not made the news, and life has gone merrily on for public-sector employees, with aboveinflation increases being demanded and the government capitulating time after time for political reasons.

The unions will “now bring SA to a standstill”. I think that they and the government have pretty much done that already. The question is whether this behaviour is driven by stupidity or pure greed.

Ger pig, on businessLIVE

Finance minister Tito Mboweni presented a very brave budget, but the devil will be in the public-sector wage negotiations.

Almost everything has been slashed to the bare minimum, but the wage bill still needs to be tackled (and I suspect the government will cave).

Mboweni deserves some credit for sticking to his guns, though the promised bailouts to Eskom and SAA stick in the craw.

Andrew Merrifield, on businessLIVE

Yes, it is easy to announce projected wage bill cuts, but they can only be believed when they are actually realised.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has never during his presidency stood up to union demands — his track record suggests that this announcement is more of this government’s signature smoke and mirrors meant to assuage investors while not actually doing anything in the end.

Mani None, on businessLIVE

I think it is a good “aiming point”. The problem is that, historically, our government has notoriously bad aim, especially where labour is concerned.

The solution is very simple: SA, and especially all the unemployed South Africans, cannot afford our unions.

A free, flexible labour market would stimulate growth and reduce unemployment, poverty and its major consequence, crime.

Peter Dexter, on businessLIVE

Another failure of bureaucracy

Hilary Joffe’s column “Red tape for work visas hobbles growth and fuels inequality” (February 23) is another sad story of bureaucracy failing to understand the urgent needs of a business requiring the services of outside specialists to keep an enterprise functioning.

This goes to the heart of the many problems we face and is an example of the ignorance of those whose responsibility it is to issue work visas and do so with a sense of urgency.

It also applies to allowing entry to visitors who bring in valuable foreign currency, instead of subjecting them to unnecessary scrutiny.

Surely the cabinet ministers whose portfolios are responsible for these matters should ensure they are attended to timeously?

Ted O’Connor, Johannesburg