Ramaphosa Faces Uphill Battle to Trim South Africa’s Wage Bill
JOHANNESBURG – South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ambitions of trimming the state’s wage bill to get the nation’s shaky finances under control have run into opposition from the outset.
In his Feb. 13 state-of-the-nation address, Ramaphosa warned that the government’s current debt levels are heading toward unsustainable levels and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni will unveil details of plans to cut costs in his Feb. 26 budget speech. The government is engaging with unions on how it could contain labor costs, which equate to 35.4% of national spending, he said.
The state has proposed cutting 30,000 jobs and freezing pay for three years, according to Sizwe Pamla, a spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the nation’s biggest labor group and a member of the country’s ruling coalition. Such measures aren’t washing with unions that represent more than three-quarters of state workers.
Source: iol.co.za
