Bloated civil service is the real millstone around our necks

Sometimes it is difficult, in present-day South Africa, to know whether we are living through a particularly awful nightmare … or whether we are the butt of a very bad, very sick, joke.

So, in a time when many sectors of the economy have been devastated by Covid-19 lockdowns and when many workers have been brought to their knees through layoffs or slashed salaries, our fat-cat civil servants only want the feeding trough to be topped up further.

Last week, the City of Joburg announced plans to vote a 6.4% pay increase for its councillors, while offering cash-strapped residents no relief in terms of rates.

But even that greed pales into insignificance next to the Steve Tshwete municipality in Mpumalanga, which has sneaked through a 48% increase for its municipal manager, 16.8% for its six senior managers and a 6.25% increase for the rest of the staff.

Residents of the municipality will be lumped with an average increase of 9.5% on property rates and increases of 8.1% for sewerage, 6.7% for refuse collection, 6% for water and 6.3% for electricity.

Is it any wonder, then, that SA’s state debt levels will exceed 100% of gross domestic product in 2025 and rise to almost 114% before the end of the decade, according to Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s own estimates?

The financial millstone around the neck of this country is our bloated civil service.

The overall spending on government needs to be drastically reduced – and it needs to be radically transformed (to use the government’s own favourite phrase) to serve the needs of the people – in education, health and social services – rather than the appetites of the cadres … which seemingly know no bounds.

Sadly, it is highly unlikely the ANC will end this system of wasteful patronage … because that is how it buys loyalty.

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