With finance minister Tito Mboweni set to deliver his maiden budget speech, all eyes have once again turned to South Africa’s finances.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest points of contention\u00a0will likely be government’s growing wage bill, and how much government spends on public sector wages.<\/p>\n
Mboweni was recently quoted saying that as much as\u00a0R8 out of every R10 spent by government going to salaries of civil servants<\/p>\n
However, this figure was dismissed by South African Federation of Trade Unions general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, who described the share as \u201cabsolute nonsense\u201d.<\/p>\n
How much does the government spend?<\/strong><\/p>\n Fact-checking website,\u00a0Africa Check,\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>has analysed the budget data to see how much money government actually spends on public sector wages.<\/p>\n It notes that South Africa\u2019s 2018 budget shows that money paid to employees made up 35.2% of the government\u2019s consolidated spending in 2017\/18. This is R3.52 per R10.<\/strong><\/p>\n Jabulani Sikhakhane, spokesperson for South Africa\u2019s national treasury, further clarified to Africa Check that Mboweni was describing a situation he wanted to avoid.<\/p>\n “Minister Mboweni was not stating as a fact that government spends R8 out of every R10 on salaries,” Sikhakhane said.<\/p>\n “His was an illustrative point, that if government spent R8 out of every R10 on employee remuneration, it would be left with R2 for all other services.”<\/p>\n He added that salaries as a share of spending would vary by government department.<\/p>\n “In provincial education and health departments, for example, compensation of employees will absorb a significant proportion of the budget.”<\/p>\n Salaries based on revenue<\/strong><\/p>\n