GOVT DECIDES TO FREEZE SALARY REVIEW - REPORT

MBABANE – In what could come as disappointing news to civil servants, government has decided to postpone the implementation of the salary review.

This is according to the Kingdom of Swaziland’s 2015 Article IV Consultation Report, which has been published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington D.C.

The staff report from the IMF states that the country’s authorities planned to implement several measures to address the forthcoming Southern African Customs Union (SACU) shock decline in receipts. One of the measures was to rationalise the wage bill by cleaning up unidentified workers, removing allocations for permanent vacant positions and postponing the salary review.

However, all is not lost as the country’s authorities informed the IMF that, while postponing the salary review, they would allow annual cost of living adjustments to continue. The salary review exercise was conducted by a private consultant and the report was handed over to government through the Ministry of Public Service at the end of August 2015 but to date, government has not released the report to the public sector unions.

 Meanwhile, the IMF recommended that wages could further be contained beyond the authorities’ current plan by limiting salary and notch increases to reduce per head cost and further limit new hiring, while reallocating resources to critical social areas and halting the salary review, which could lead to sizable wage increases.

In a statement issued by Ms Kapwepwe, the Executive Director for the Kingdom of Swaziland under fiscal policy and reforms, the IMF stated that the major challenge continued to be the wage bill.

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