SALARY INCREMENTS FOR BOARDS

MANZINI – Each member of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) will cost the taxpayer an extra E13 208.08 per month following an increment in their salaries.

This is according to the Prescription of Statutory Salaries and Allowances of Commissions and Boards Notice, 2020. 

The notice revokes Legal Notice No.96 of 2013, which had been remunerating members of the EBC E42 451.33 per month. 

However, as of June 1, 2020, they are now remunerated E55 659.41 per month, which computes to an increment of E158 497.04 annually. Second to benefit the most, according to the Legal Notice No.275 of 2020, was the deputy chairman of EBC.

The new remuneration of the deputy chairman is E59 634.92. It was increased by E11 807.99 from E47 826.92. In addition to this, the deputy and the members of the EBC have benefits that include constituency allowances set at 12.5 per cent of their salaries, housing allowance which is 25 per cent of their basic salary, entertainment allowance calculated at 10 per cent of their basic salary, car allowance, 100 per cent medical aid cover and communication allowance of E5 000 and E3 000 respectively.

Awarded 

They are also awarded five per cent of their respective basic salaries for utilities.

The chairman of the EBC received a hike of E3 581.58 per month.

Also benefitting from the new gazette are the four members of the Teaching Service Commission (TSC), who were not paid until recently. 

As from the aforementioned date, they are paid E47 708.08 per month. The other members of emabandla’s salaries were captured as having been increased with about an average of three per cent. 

This is a percentage that was recently awarded to all those benefitting from the wage bill following negotiations that spanned over three years between government and public sector associations.

Signatory to the legal notice is the Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg. The gazette states that ‘without prejudice to any other benefits conferred by law, the holder of an office specified in the schedule shall be paid not less than the salary allowance or both (as the case may be) specified in relation to the holder of other columns used to illustrate the new remuneration scales.

When the schedules of the salaries of the different Boards and emabandla were scrutinised, it was noted that the salaries of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Land Management Board (LMB) were lower than those of the Citizenship Board and the TSC.

Those in the CSC earn E45 383.58 per month, which is similar to the salaries of the four members of the LMB. In addition to their salary, the members of the Boards and Commissions have varying benefits that entail 100 per cent medical aid cover and sitting allowances for some.

Gazette 

When computing the amounts in the gazette, the members of the Boards and Commissions shall be remunerated over E20 million per month. The salaries of the chairpersons of the various Boards and Emabandla vary between E667 913 and E763 332 per annum, while the least paid members annually earn E572 508.

It should be noted that in February 2018, government issued a gazette of Legal Notice No.27 of 2018, detailing increased salaries for commissions and Boards.

However, two weeks later, the then Minister of Finance, Martin Dlamini, withdrew the notice of the gazette. Before the withdrawal, there was a public outcry that such an act would contribute immensely to the bulk of the national budget, specifically the wage bill.

This was so because government had increased the salaries of the commissions and Boards by up to over 50 per cent.

Critics included representatives of civil servants, including the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT). The association made it known that government had rubbed salt into their wounds as civil servants were fighting for their cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: