Mboweni said it will be reduced by a massive R27 billion over the next three years. 

Mboweni justified his announcement by arguing that the public wage bill is “unsustainable” and government needed to shift resources from recurrent expenditure to infrastructure and investment. 

“The first step is to allow older public servants who want to do so, to retire early and gracefully. This will save an estimated R4.8 billion in 2019/20, R7.5 billion in 2020/21 and R8 billion in 2021/22. In time this will be complemented by limits on overtime and bonus payments as well as pay progression," Mboweni said.

Fedusa said that the announcement was "underhanded" and was an about-turn on the government's commitment at the Jobs Summit in 2018 to stop retrenchments and save jobs.

“The real problem is not a bloated public service, but rather the billions of rands that have been lost to the national fiscus through rampant corruption and cronyism that has brought South Africa on the brink of collapse, while the culprits still roam scot-free and are not being prosecuted and sent to prison,” Acting General Secretary, Riefdah Ajam, of Fedusa said.

Fedusa said it was also concerned by the announcement of fuel levies by 29 cents per litre for petrol and 30 cents per litre for diesel, which would hit the pockets of cash-strapped consumers. 

The labour federation did, however, welcome the announcement that state guarantees would be subjected to more stringent rules and that there was a proposal to end guarantees for operational purposes.

"This will most certainly place less strain on the life-time contributions of workers, when lucrative pension funds become an alternate and easy source of bailout."

The significant cuts in the cost of data were welcomed as these were made more accessible to the poorer sectors of society, the federation said, as were the allocation of R1.1 billion for the Jobs Fund and the Employment Tax Incentive scheme as they supported jobs for young people.

African News Agency