Finance Minister Tito Mboweni appears to be gunning for the wage bill and bloated structure of the public service and state owned enterprises. This as he prepares to deliver his maiden Medium Term Budget Policy Statement this week.
Mboweni delivered the second Kader Asmal annual lecturer in Cape Town on Saturday.
He has hinted at his unhappiness over the wage bill in the public service and at state-owned enterprises (SOE’s). He says its not sustainable to spend 80% of government money on wages as this robs service delivery.
“The public sector being civil service and state owned enterprises are bloated. So there’s no room there. In fact if you take an organisation like Eskom, they probably need to lose about 30 000 jobs because the organisation is bloated. The salary bill is consuming so much not leaving much for infrastructure.”
Mboweni’s comments come after reports that government is planning to lay off more than 30 000 public servants in the next three years as cost cutting measures.
The reported retrenchments are believed would reduce government salary bill by R20 billion.
These reports have been denied by minister of Public Service and Administration, Ayanda Dlodlo. She said they are looking at initiatives for employees who are reaching retirement age rather than retrenchments to reduce the huge government wage bill.
The matter of state capture also came under the spotlight. Mboweni described the phenomenal as a heist and called those who actively participated in state capture ‘dishonorable’.
“It’s a heist that thing… Its robbery. There is nothing else you can call it. Its day light robbery. It’s a heist. So those who participated in that heist are dishonorable.”
His sentiment is echoed by Deputy Finance Minister Mondli Gungubele.
“We’ve messed up this thing. Thieves are amongst us. They’ve been arrested. We see they are in jail. Others are in court. But when we speak we say something coming from England, something coming from America. Here are the thieves. Others are within our structures.”
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister says low growth levels will continue to lead low revenue collections.
Mboweni highlighted that productive sectors of the economy must be revived to lead to higher growth.
He says the mini budget will give assurance on policy certainty, institutional strength, a strong judiciary and media, human capital development and technological innovation.
