City wage increases

Janine Myburgh, president, Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Unless the City council can gain control of its staff costs, Cape Town is headed for serious financial problems.

In a detailed examination of the draft budget for this year, we found that provision has been made for pay increases of 17 and 18% for the top executives, turning them all into multi-millionaires.

Senior managers are set for a 13.8% increase.

According to the draft budget, the munici-
pal manager will earn a total package of R4064276 a year or R339000 a month. The chief finance officer is set to earn about R3.8 million. The executive director of the mayor’s office will see his salary rise by 18% to nearly R3.3million. Others in the R3.3million bracket (R274000 a month) include the execu-
tive directors for corporate services, informal settle-
ments, water and waste services, safety and security, social services, transport and urban development.

The executive director for energy gets a 10% increase and moves up to R2.3 million a year.

By contrast the mayor and deputy mayor earn R1.45m and R1.2m.

When the unions see increases of 18% and multi-million rand packages for other senior staff, their demands will rocket. Negotiating in these circumstances will be difficult to say the least.