OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday
AN enraged Nehawu, South Africa’s largest public sector union, has appealed to politicians to reject ”morally unacceptable” wage increases of between 5% and 15.5% the day after it averted a national strike by its 240000 members by entering into a new salary agreement with the government.
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union’s (Nehawu) Moloantoa Molaba said it was ”politically and morally unacceptable that a ‘people’s government’ awards itself an increase of up to 15.5%, while ordinary workers only get an increase of between 3 and 7%.”
Nehawu this week said it had decided to ”live with the state’s pay offer” of between six and seven percent on a graded scale – up from the initial state offer of five percent across the board – for the country’s 1.1 million civil servants.
However, it was ”very disappointed and furious” with the salary adjustments for politicians, which were recently approved by President Thabo Mbeki.
Ordinary MPs serving their first term in Parliament will get no increase, while MPs serving a second term will receive seven percent or 10% more, depending on their length of service.
Daily newspaper Beeld said a salary expert had warned that it was ”not too clever” to announce the increases, which will be determined by the various politicians’ level of experience, ”just before an election”.
Dr Willem de Villiers, senior lecturer in industrial psychology at the University of Stellenbosch, told Beeld that he doubted whether the evaluation to determine the increases ”was done thoroughly and scientifically”, which is the normal practice when posts are evaluated.
Tony Yengeni, ANC chief whip, pointed out that MPs do not negotiate their salary increases.
”It is the independent Commission for Public Office Bearers which makes recommendations to the president in this regard, and the ANC is completely satisfied with this process,” he said.
Mbeki ignored a recommendation for a 10% increase last year, and only approved 4%.