Government

South Africa’s ministers now fly economy class as new restrictions kick in

Ryan Brothwell

 ·3 Mar 2020

Government has taken to social media to highlight how members of the executive are now flying economy class in line with the new ministerial handbook.

In a tweet on Monday (2 March) Deputy minister for the Public Service and Administration Sindi Chikunga was shown flying in coach on a South African Airways plane.

The new ministerial handbook which was officially announced in December 2019, states that ministers and their partners must travel in economy class for all official domestic travel as well as international travel where the travel time is less than two hours.

Some of the other notable changes to the handbook include:

• On the procurement of official vehicles, the cost of the vehicles is limited to R700,000 (including VAT), maintenance plans and security extras;

• Travel by a spouse is limited to six domestic economy trips per year;

• Additional travel tickets for private use has been reduced from 30 to 20 tickets a year;

• The state will not bear any costs in respect of security upgrades done at the minister’s private residences;

• The rental of cellphones and the cost of official calls is limited to R60,000 an annum;

• The ministerial support staff has been drastically reduced;

• The state will limit its contribution towards water and lights at R5,000 a month for state-owned residences;

• The continued benefits for members upon relinquishing office is one calendar month;

• A member is allowed to occupy one state-owned resident free of charge but may rental for other properties they plan to use

Deputy Minister for the Public Service and Administration Ms @sindichikunga flying economy class in line with new regulations governing travel by Members of the Executive. #BathoPele pic.twitter.com/KG31whKC4B

— National DPSA (@thedpsa) March 2, 2020

Wage freeze

In a government gazette published at the end of February, President Cyril Ramaphosa also confirmed that a number of senior officials including the deputy president and ministers would not be receiving an increase this year.

Other lower-ranking officials earning less than R1.5 million can expect to see increases of around 3%.

This aligns with comments made by finance minister Tito Mboweni in his 2019 Budget Speech in which he indicated that the public wage bill is unsustainable and emphasised that the national and provincial budgets will be reduced by R27 billion over the next three years.

To reduce the expenditure on remuneration, Mboweni said that members of Parliament, provincial legislatures and executives at public entities will not receive a salary increase during 2019/2020 financial year.

The official salaries are outlined below.

Read: This is how much Mabuza, Malema and other officials will get paid this year