OWEN REVEALS: THERE WAS E500M BUDGET FOR CIVIL SERVANTS’ PAY RISE

MANZINI – Oops! There was E500 million as a provisional budget to cater for civil servants’ cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the 2018/19 financial year.

Minister of Public Service Owen Nxumalo said he was not taking civil servants or the nation for a ride when he said they (civil servants) would get something this financial year as far as COLA was concerned.

It was in March 9, 2018 during the Portfolio Committee debate of his ministry in Parliament when the minister assured civil servants that they would get something this financial year.

After the government negotiation team (GNT) tabled zero per cent pay rise for civil servants on Wednesday, union leaders wondered if the minister was taking them for a ride with his statement.

“I was not taking them for a ride because when I made that statement, there was a provisional budget of E500 million which was supposed to cater for civil servants’ salary increase,” he said in an interview yesterday.

The minister emphasised that during that period, government’s cash flow was doing well. He said the unfortunate thing was that the negotiations delayed and found that government’s responsibilities had piled up.
He said the provision was still there but the fact was that it only existed on paper as government had no money at the moment.

On that note, the minister urged the unions to continue with the negotiations because once government recovered from the current economic crisis, the money would be put into the provisional budget to cater for their pay rise.

On another note, the minister clarified that even though civil servants were under his ministry, as Cabinet, they discussed issues and made decisions collectively. He said civil servants could seem as if they were his responsibility but considering the way they operated as Cabinet, they were affected by decisions taken collectively.

Meanwhile, some of the union leaders who were contacted said they smelt a rat in the whole issue.
“They should have declared that there was a provisional budget set aside for our salaries and it would be replaced once the country recovers economically,” said one of the union leaders.

Again, they wondered that had they accepted the zero per cent offer on Wednesday, was government going to talk about the provisional budget?
“The answer is obviously no,” they said.
The union leaders said they would look into the matter since they would meet today to discuss what transpired at the round table on Wednesday.

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