With some fat trimming, SA’s budget has R30bn to spare

Every February, regardless of who delivers the speech, we are told that the national budget requires discipline and tightening of belts to rein in expenditure.

So, as a fun exercise, let’s see if this year we can help identify some of the potential cost-saving areas. Perhaps the greatest thing about public representation is the requirement for disclosure and transparency. While this isn’t always adhered to, some details cannot be avoided.

Let’s dive right in and look at some numbers shall we, starting with the ever-popular wage bill.

The top half of the table paints two very different pictures – one of a developing economy, and one of a developed economy. So why then does the second half of the table not reflect the same?

Perhaps some context would help here. The average salary for a PhD-level lecturer at Wits University, according to Glassdoor, is R750 000 per annum. The average salary of a medical doctor, after seven-plus years of medical school, is around R720 000 per annum. In comparison, the base salary for a member of parliament (MP), excluding benefits and regardless of qualification, is around R1.2 million per annum following the latest increase.

If you’re lucky enough to be a minister, that base figure increases by an additional R1 million.

While we’re looking at the wage bill of MPs, let’s add to this the 55 000 government employees who currently earn more than R1 million. Most of these would likely be mayors, directors-general, deputy directors-general, premiers and so on. And most of them earn considerably more than R1.2 million.

If you’re fortunate enough to be the eThekwini city manager, R1.3 million is just your annual increase.

In truth, some of these individuals have the necessary academic qualifications and work experience to justify their wages. But for the sake of this exercise, let’s assume for a moment all these parties would earn an equal amount of R720 000 per year, equivalent to the medical doctors’ average.

What was the point of all this?

If we cut just 55 000 specific salaries by 40%, bringing them in line with other civil servants, our R780 billion public sector wage bill would be reduced by R26.4 billion (3.3%) each year. And that is assuming none of these individuals currently earn more than R1.2 million.

If we look at the MPs in isolation, that would be a R220 million saving from 490 individuals. Moving swiftly along though, next we have VIP protection.

The R3.4 billion spent on VIP protection is specific to the protection of certain government officials, and not the public.

By comparison, for contextual reasons only, the budget allocated to the Hawks sits at R2.2 billion for the year. Moreover, not all government officials in the country qualify for VIP protection, only 280 of them do. So, if we are to take the 280 that do, they account for about R2 billion of the R3.4 billion allocated to VIP protection.

That works out to each receiving R7 142 857 worth of security per year on an even split basis.

Let’s tally up our efforts

This shouldn’t be too hard to add up. About R29 billion could be saved in five minutes of reading this, making it 1.28% of total government expenditure for the current financial year (R2.25 trillion), which is more than half of the Presidential Employment Stimulus Package.