Proposed salary hikes for officials at the highest levels of government shows ‘no respect for South Africans’

Parties and experts have slammed that the news of the Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers recommending a 4.1% salary increase for public office bearers for the 2025/2026 financial year.

The recommendation, published in a government gazette this week, proposed increases at the highest levels of government.

If approved, the President’s annual salary would rise by about R137,000 to approximately R3.4 million. The Deputy President would receive an increase of just under R130,000, taking his earnings to around R3.1 million a year.

Cabinet Ministers stand to benefit from an increase of about R110,000, pushing their annual pay to roughly R2.8 million. Deputy Ministers would earn more than R2.3 million per year under the proposed adjustments.

National spokesperson for the MKP, Nhlamulo Ndhlela, said that the president has not performed whatsoever and that he has led this country into further debt, along with the decay of infrastructure.

Ndhlela said that throughout government, there is a brain drain.

“For our people. This is nothing else than a failed state. This government is a government of failures that don’t actually deserve to earn a salary. Maybe some sort of a stipend because already they are eating into the fiscus.”

“It just shows you that they have no respect for South Africans. They have no respect for the sovereignty of this country. They have no respect for the plight of the poorest of the poor.

“It’s an indictment on the people who died for this country’s freedom that you have such leaders there.”

GOOD Secretary-General Brett Herron said: “Public Office Bearer salary increments are difficult to defend in times of enormous hardship and suffering within our country. They are hard to defend when millions of South Africans are hungry, and we don’t have a national food programme nor a proper basic income guarantee.

“We understand that the commission’s recommendations to the president are based on a number of factors, and most South Africans would agree that we need to attract better-qualified and capable South Africans to leadership if we are to address the systemic conditions that result in the unemployment, poverty and indignity the majority suffer under.”

Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe said that this recommendation is a slap in the face of South Africans struggling to make ends meet.

“A concept of solidarity would have said that, as a way of being seen to be in line and in concert with the rest of our people are going through hell, maybe we at the executive level should actually forgo these proposed salary increases. I would not be surprised if he were to sign that into law.”

Political analyst Dr Ricky Mukonza said: “To be fair to these top public office bearers, the increase in their salaries is fair considering what leaders in the private sector and those running quasi-public organisations are earning.

“What must be of concern is how low street-level bureaucrats and those at the low end of the ladder are earning. While it is appreciated that government employees should be driven by the desire to serve the public, they also deserve decent earnings to cushion them from the adverse economic hardships,” Mukonza said.

“I also argue that if South Africa can deal with leakages as a result of corruption and other ill practices, it should be able to reasonably pay for those serving the republic, as well as providing public goods and services as expected by South Africans.

“What may muddy the discussion on the matter is juxtaposing these increases with how ordinary South Africans are struggling economically,” Mukonza said.

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za