She says of the 1.3 million public servants, about 127 000 have indicated their desire to take early retirement.

During his Budget Speech this week, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni spoke of the need to reduce the public sector’s massive wage bill by R27 billion over three years. He said the Minister said that this will include offering early retrenchment packages to public servants 55-years old and up.

It is estimated to include about 30 000 people. In addition, he said that performance bonuses, which totals about R2 billion a year, will be phased out.

This as the Department of Public Service and Administration is battling with unions over wage increases of personnel.

Dlodlo says, “We deny that we are retrenching. What has happened over time is that people have approached us, and lots of people in the public service, wanting to retire early, not retrench. We are not retrenching because we also trying to ensure that we bring in younger people into the establishment. So it’s an early retirement that bears no penalties.”

Dlodlo says the Wage Bill is a concern and is being addressed.

“We need to find innovative ways and creative ways of ensuring that we bring young people into the establishment. Currently, we have almost 1.3 million employees and we are saying we are not bloated. We need those people, but we need to re-skill. Government is moving towards a particular direction into the fourth industrial revolution and many other things, we need to improve service delivery, we need to introduce a new culture.”

SABC News