City managers’ pay rise is inapt

Here’s a quick “failed state” quiz question: What part of the public sector is the worst at the moment in South Africa? You’re correct if you said municipalities and local government. Services are failing in towns and cities across the country mainly because “cadre deployment” by the ANC government has allowed the incompetent and corrupt to get their hands on the controls of service delivery.

And now, the VBS saga has shown that a number of them were in an indecent haste to invest (in many instances illegally) municipal funds with the bank, which was little more than a Ponzi scheme benefitting the well-connected Limpopo political mafia.

Some towns cannot even pay their workers because VBS has broken them.

So, why is it that municipal managers around the country are now getting boosted pay packets?

According to a notice in the Government Gazette, these managers will now be paid R3.9 million a year, and those who report to them will get R3 million annually. That’s more than the president gets and many times more than the average pay of struggling South Africans – those fortunate enough to have jobs, that is.

The country already has a bloated and overpaid civil service, so why is this happening, President Ramaphosa?