Days after SONA, Ramaphosa betrays private sector with R450 million salary increase for millionaire cadres
19 February 2022
Please note that this statement contains updated and corrected figures for the extent of the salary increase to senior managers.
The decision by the Minister of Public Service and Administration, Ayanda Dlodlo, to award a R450 million salary increase for millionaire managers in the Public Service is an insult to the private sector and the more than 10 million unemployed South Africans. This latest salary increase, following a R30 billion salary increase for lower levels of the public service last year, deals the death blow to years of empty promises by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government that it would freeze the public sector wage bill to avert a full-blown debt crisis.
Just days after telling South Africans that “it is the private sector, rather than the government, that creates jobs,” Ramaphosa’s administration has taken R450 million in taxpayer money out of the pockets of the private sector and handed it over to the very millionaire cadres who ran both the State and economy into the ground. Even with unemployment at its highest ever rate of 46%, and after two years of lockdowns that destroyed millions of livelihoods, Ramaphosa’s government continues to place its political interests ahead of the needs of the country by spending R450 million in taxpayer money to buy support for the upcoming ANC elective congress from ANC cadres “deployed” into senior management service (SMS) positions.
This unaffordable increase entails a monthly pensionable cash allowance of R1 695 for salary levels 13 to 15, R1 818 for salary level 16, and a salary increase of 1.5% for levels 13 to 16 – all backdated to April 2021.