Finance minister Pravin Gordhan believes that the cost-of-living allowances for South African staff at missions are ‘exceptionally generous’.<\/p>\n
The minister briefly outlined that allowances that ambassadorial staff representing the country abroad range from R600,000 to R1.3 million per year, ‘and are paid on top of full salaries, accommodation, education and other allowances’.<\/p>\n
His comments were contained in the medium-term Budget policy statement released last week.<\/p>\n
Gordhan stressed that the reviews were prepared by consultants and did not necessarily reflect the government\u2019s views or assessment.<\/p>\n
“Cost drivers in foreign missions \u2013 Over the past three years, the rate of spending growth at foreign missions has\u00a0 exceeded the rate of rand depreciation. Spending growth was\u00a0 driven largely by higher property costs, allowances for South African staff, and growth in\u00a0 the number of locally recruited personnel.<\/p>\n
“Cost-of-living allowances for South African staff at missions are exceptionally generous,\u00a0 ranging from R600,000 to R1.3 million per year, and are paid on top of full salaries, accommodation, education and other allowances,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
It was revealed at the end of 2015, that South Africa has the second most diplomatic embassies in the world, behind only the US, spending R3.2 billion annually on global diplomatic missions.<\/p>\n
The Sunday Times, citing a reply to a parliamentary question, reported that South Africa has 122 embassies around the world, swallowing up R1.9 billion for salaries and R1.3 billion for \u2018goods and services\u2019 every year.<\/p>\n
Figures showed that government owns 25 chanceries, one consulate, 35 official residences, 66 staff houses, and 16 plots of land.<\/p>\n
How much money kings, mayors, and MPs get paid in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Finance minister Pravin Gordhan believes that the cost-of-living allowances for South African staff at missions are ‘exceptionally generous’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":102841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-141769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141769"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141783,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141769\/revisions\/141783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}SA high commissioner to Singapore is a former SAA flight attendant \u2013 and convicted drug trafficker<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"