State clears up municipal pay confusion
Salga has deinied that new wage packages for municipal managers and other senior managers will strain the fiscus.
|||Johannesburg - Despite opposition and public perception that the fiscus will come under strain, following a recent notice on the remuneration of municipal and senior managers, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Local Government has declared that this is not the case.
The DA claims the measures, outlined in the Government Gazette in July, will lead to some salary packages increasing by 40 percent.
But the department contends that only 179 out of 1 157 senior managers appointed, and 19 municipal managers out of 238, will be affected by the new government policy.
The new measures came into effect on July 1 and remain in effect until June 30 next year.
The official opposition said this week it was unjustifiable that “new” municipal managers in category 8-9 municipalities could earn up to R3.3 million. However Dumisa Jele, chief of staff to Minister Pravin Gordhan, said no floodgates on the public purse were being opened.
“There are no constraints on the public purse, so there is no immediate pressure on the fiscus with shrinking revenue,” he said.
The new steps have the stated aim of developing, attracting and retaining the right skills, so that municipalities can perform their role effectively and efficiently in every town and city in the country. Jele said conscious effort was applied, through rigorous consultation with the key stakeholders including National Treasury and the SA Local Government Association, in formulating the policy.
“Based on the feedback and the actual data received from municipalities, the necessary adjustments of the pay scales and scarcity or rural allowances – capped at 10 percent – were determined.”
The actual offer of remuneration to a senior manager on appointment is meant to be based solely on the following criteria, which by law municipalities must adhere to:
* The candidate possessing the relevant qualifications
* The requisite number of years of local government or related experience
* The level of competency demonstrated, measured against the competency framework contained in state regulations.
“A senior manager who has acquired a competent level of competence (sic), will be remunerated at mid-point, (while) a senior manager who has demonstrated evidence of a superior level of competence will be remunerated at the maximum of the pay scale, as measured against the competency framework,” Jele said.
Competencies include leadership competence, financial planning, financial management, auditing and several other managerial performance indicators.
“It is important to note that no municipal manager or any manager reporting to a municipal manager appointed before July 1, 2014, and currently in service, qualifies in terms of the new remuneration scales.” This would be the case until these contracts lapse or are terminated.
The notice, issued by Gordhan, determines the size of the municipalities, using three factors; namely, total municipal income, total salary and wage bill and total municipal equitable share.
The remuneration of senior managers, government believes, is a fundamental pillar of the transformation of local government.
It wants “resilient institutions” to be built, with a view that salaries are one way in which to attract and retain suitably qualified and competent managers.
The DA said it would be writing to the Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) portfolio committee chairman, Richard Mdakane, to request that Gordhan brief MPs on the wage increases and the affordability of the measures to municipalities.
“The public sector wage bill currently stands at an astonishing R400 billion. The projected total for the 2016/17 financial year (is) R430bn – this represents 35.5 percent of the government’s total budget,” its spokesman on Cogta, Kevin Mileham said.
Labour Bureau