Apex court throws Ramaphosa a life jacket on public service wage agreement

The government has just been saved from having to stump up a vast sum of money it doesn’t have, to give to people who don’t deserve it.

The apex court, endorsing an earlier Labour Appeal Court decision, has thrown President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government a life jacket. A supposedly cash-strapped Treasury, which just a week ago was dispensing a R200 billion tax revenue windfall, has been excused from having to implement the last leg of the three-year public service wage agreement that would have cost R29 billion.

The unanimous, full-bench Constitutional Court judgment lashes the public service unions for greed and “unjustifiably enriching” themselves for two years from “illicit increases”.

Acting Justice Mjabuliseni Madondo said that if implemented, the collective agreement would “precipitate a fiscal crisis” that would detract from the state’s ability to alleviate the plight of the “poorest of the poor”.

The nub of the issue, said Madondo, was the regulation stipulating the government could enter into an agreement only if there was a “realistic calculation” of costs in both the current and subsequent fiscal year and also providing it didn’t conflict with Treasury rules.

“The state contends that these mandatory requirements were not satisfied before it entered into the impugned collective agreement, and it is therefore unlawful,” said Madondo.

In other words, the government wanted the courts to set aside the agreement on the grounds that it hadn’t properly thought about what it was doing. It is an astounding admission of the incompetence of the ministers who negotiated the deal and of the Cabinet that approved it.

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The second leg of the state’s argument was that even if the agreement had complied with Treasury regulations, it became unaffordable because of Covid. The government was not plunged into financial trouble by Covid.

While it is true that Covid imposed extra strain, far worse in their impact have been the ANC’s skewed priorities, vanity projects, lack of fiscal discipline, and failure to reign in corruption.

The speciousness of the state’s Covid body blow argument is further exposed by the massive infusions of cash the government has had as a direct result of the pandemic. The Solidarity Fund raised R3.4 billion and another R182 billion came from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

While the ConCourt was indulgent, but misguided, in rescuing Ramaphosa’s government from its own foolishness, it did not spare a cosseted civil service from withering scorn.

During bad and worsening economic circumstances, public service employees “had their jobs secured and received year-on-year salary increments … outstripping inflation and outperforming the private sector salary increases”, said Madondo.

The subtext of the ConCourt judgment is that the 1.3 million public service unions are overpaid brats. A stern judicial rebuke will not change that. Only a government willing to engage in root and branch reforms could do so. A Ramaphosa facing a leadership conference in nine months can’t and won’t.

An ANC facing a general election in two years’ time can’t and won’t.