Home | News | COUNCILLORS SET FOR SALARY UPGRADE?

COUNCILLORS SET FOR SALARY UPGRADE?

11/08/2019 09:23:00 BY WELCOME DLAMINI

Font size:

MBABANE – There is a move that could further strain government’s already bloated wage bill.

The position of councillor is set for a major upgrade that will likely be at par with Indvuna Yenkhundla (constituency headman) and Bucopho (constituency executive committee member). This is a temporary measure because the other option, which is being looked at in the long-term, is to benchmark the councillors’ salary against that of members of parliament. MPs, Tindvuna Tetinkhudla and Bucopho are all classified as parliamentarians.

Should a proposal that is currently being discussed by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry and Housing and Urban Development be adopted, the terms and conditions of service for councillors will be upped to this level.
A result of this would be more taxpayers’ money being channeled towards salaries of politicians.

RENUMERATION FRAMEWORK

This Thursday, it emerged that the much-anticipated remuneration framework for politicians had finally been concluded and approved by Cabinet. While the proposal for improving the councillors remuneration was being discussed based on Circular No.2 of 2013, it would be expected that the talks would now be aligned to the new remuneration framework. In the event the temporary measure sees the light of day, based on the new terms and conditions of service for politicians, the councillors could find themselves being entitled to a car, just like tindvuna tetinkhundla. This is a luxury they are not entitled to in their terms and conditions of service contained in Legal Notice No.87 of 2018.
An Indvuna Yenkhundla will now be entitled to a vehicle that is valued at a maximum of E450 000 (E90 000 annual commuted car allowance).

Bucopho is not entitled to this either. Presently, an ordinary councillor is paid at least E5 542 per month, which is made up of a retainer fee of E3 855 and a sitting allowance of E423 (maximum of four sittings per month). A deputy mayor earns E6 369 a month, which is a retainer fee of E4 329 and a sitting allowance of E510 (maximum four sittings a month). The mayor is remunerated at E7 182 a month that consists of a retainer fee of E4 818 and a sitting allowance of E591 (maximum four sittings monthly).

Should the proposal be adopted, there will no longer be a retainer fee but a basic monthly and annual salary that would be between a minimum of E6 977.75 a month (E83 733 annually) that bucopho are entitled to and a maximum of E8 491.66 a month (E101 900 yearly) that an Indvuna Yenkhundla is entitled to.

They will also top up their salaries with a sitting allowance of E350 per sitting, which would add E1 400 to their monthly remuneration (assuming they will continue to hold a maximum four sittings a month).
This would catapult their monthly salary to a minimum of slightly above E8 000 and a maximum of close to E10 000.

OUTREACH ALLOWANCE

The councillors could also find themselves entitled to a constituency outreach allowance of 12.5 per cent of their basic salary, which would be a minimum of E872.22 and a maximum of E1 061.46.
The councillors could also find themselves being put under a medical aid scheme where 67 per cent of the premium is paid by the employer and they would be expected to contribute 33 per cent.
Further, they could become members of the politicians’ pension scheme known as the Members of Parliament and Designated Officers (MOPADO) pension fund.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development disclosed the planned upgrade of the councillors’ remuneration in its 1st quarter performance report submitted in parliament recently.
The ministry is aware that improving the councillors’ pay would weigh heavily on ratepayers hence government would have to pump more money towards the proposed pay structure. It was only last year that councillors, through Legal Notice No.87 of 2018, received an increase of 32 per cent on their monthly retainer fees and 15.8 per cent on sitting allowances.

This increase, according to the ministry, was informed by the different responsibilities and functions of various urban local authorities.

EQUAL WORK,EQUAL PAY

“It is a norm that equal work attracts equal pay. While it is true that the workload among the various levels of local authorities differs, the expected output from each is the same. All local authorities are expected to implement the same pieces of legislations with different workload. The load may be biased towards the biggest local government, which also has higher complexities over and above; such may need some type of compensation of some sort,” the ministry said.
It noted, however, that studies had argued against paying based on workload but rather pay should be against the job profile.

“In this case, job profiles for the political wing of local authorities is the same. It is important though to have a system which will continuously get reviewed automatically,” said the ministry. It then got to the crux of the issue: “It may be one of the options to benchmark the salary of councillors against members of parliament, including sitting allowances. This would assit to automatically review the payment whenever there is a general review of salaries of politicians.”
The proposed scale is 1:100 of the salaries of MPs and other figures as may be decided from time to time.

INCENTIVES FOR RATIOS

The ministry said incentives for good ratios to rate collections or revenue to expenditure may also be considered from time to time.
“In the intervening period, a review proposal, based on the terms and conditions of service for Indvuna Yenkhundla and Bucopho, which (terms) serve as an appropriator comparator, is being deliberated upon with the Ministry of Finance. Upon favourable consideration, the agreed proposal would then be tabled for cabinet consideration,” said the ministry.

Adding, the ministry said it should be noted that the proposed sum totals were way above the financial resource capability of most Urban Local Authorities to carry on their own without relief from Central Government.
There are 13 municipalities in the country, with close to 100 councillors that could be added to government’s wage bill.