Taxpayers had to shell out an additional R2.6 billion over the past financial year just for bonuses from senior executives in the public service, the DA says.
This despite the fact that some 29 000 top civil servants are already millionaires because of their huge annual salaries, which amount to an average of R1,4 million each.
Dr. Leon Schreiber, DA MP and spokesman on public service and administration, said Thursday that the DA found that national and provincial governments spent R628 million and R1.97 billion on bonuses on these senior members in 2018-19 respectively.
“It is clear that the government is rewarding incompetence and corruption. Those officials work in dozens of government departments that received unfavorable audit results, but nevertheless received millions of rands in bonuses.
“The collapsed ANC-led provincial governments of Gauteng (R848 million), Limpopo (R396 million) and Mpumalanga (R244 million) paid the highest bonuses to cadres, despite their poor audit results.
“In the national government, the Department of Water and Sanitation paid its cadres R101m in bonuses to destroy South Africa’s water infrastructure.
“Although the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform continues to undermine property rights in the country by refusing to make emerging farmers owners, its managers received R41 million as bonuses.
“And while the government couldn’t find any money to support farmers in the midst of a crippling drought, the National Department of Agriculture paid about R27 million in bonuses for millionaire executives.”
Schreiber says this while Finance Minister Tito Mboweni announced in his speech on the Medium Term Budget Framework (MTBR) “that the government should cut R50 million from uterine cancer treatment and a further R40 million to get rid of wellness toilets”.
Mboweni also said in his MTBR that the government should save about R150bn over the next three years and that reducing the state’s salary bill is one of the ways to get it right.
“Me. Mthethwa’s salary is R2 million more than Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa deserves it, ”he said in a statement.
However, in a statement, Rakesh Garach, chairman of the NBF Board, dismissed Macpherson’s allegations as “sensational, groundless and misleading”.
According to the statement, the NBF has “reached several operational milestones” over the past 14 years and is of the view that it “earns comparable to its counterparts in the financial services sector and under state-owned commercial enterprises”.
