Labour Federations are warning the government that its plan to reduce the public sector wage bill by offering voluntary early retirement might backfire.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced during the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement last week Wednesday that the Treasury is targeting 30,000 public servants to take this offer.
It will be implemented over two years.
South Africa’s public sector wage bill is among the highest in the world.
The government says the voluntary early retirement programme will save an estimated R2 billion per year.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, explaining the rationale behind the latest process, says, “We are also implementing initiatives like early retirement. Not merely to reduce the size of the workforce but also introduce younger talent to the public service.”
The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) has expressed disappointment with this move.
Fedusa says it is an insult to the government’s own commitment to building a capable state.
General Secretary, Riefdah Ajam says the socio-economic delivery will be incapacitated further.
“This move will also add insult to injury as a large-scale brain drain will be inevitable and vital expertise lost to the system. After all, South Africa has an ageing public service population and without saying the problem remains the huge number of critical vacancies,” says Ajam.
The Congress of the South African Trade Union (Cosatu) has also expressed concerns and fears about this.
It says the country’s population has almost doubled since 1994, but the public sector headcount has increased by only 20 percent.
The federation says the government needs to consider this more carefully, as critical skills might be lost and later on be recruited back.
Cosatu Parliamentary Coordinator, Matthew Parks elaborates.
“We are taking a shortcut route. We fear it is simply going to end in tears and is not going to address the fundamental issues of growing the economy, of fixing the state, reducing poverty and unemployment.”
