Workers should exercise discipline when demanding higher wage settlements, Deputy Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene said on Wednesday.
”President Zuma has rightly challenged us to put job creation at the centre of our economic development strategy, which means we must exercise discipline over higher remuneration settlements,” Nene said in the National Assembly during the Finance Ministry’s budget vote.
”We have to caution that wildcat strikes and unreasonable pay demands will not take us forward.”
Nene’s comments come among a swathe of countrywide strikes by doctors and nurses.
He said last year the general government wage bill was R271-billion. This was more than 28% of all salaries and wages paid throughout the economy — and up 17% compared to the previous year.
The government, he said, needed a responsible and considered approach to managing public service remuneration.
”We have to recognise that good governance requires that special care and attention has to be devoted to salaries and remuneration of workers right across the public service,” he said.
Nene said the government would continue an expansionary policy as a way of fending off the effects of the global economic crisis.
The Department of Labour was already reporting an increase in unemployment claimants, he said.
”The budget provides for continuing growth in social assistance grants, which now goes to 13-million beneficiaries a month,” he said.
He said, however, the Treasury’s revenue was sharply down.
”While our spending programmes will remain expansionary over the period ahead we cannot ignore the reality that our revenue is sharply down, and the sustainability of our public finances sets limits to what we can afford.” — Sapa