Ntsoaki Motaung
Government says it has been deducting 5% from the salaries of the Members of parliament for the 2019/2020 fiscal year.
Minister of Public Service Semano Sekatle told parliament on Thursday as he justified governments move to reduce the said monies as well as the recent pay hikes which have gotten people talking.
Currently Members of Parliament earn a minimum annual salary of M 451 752.
Sekatle presented regulations gazette for the 5% salary increase as proposed in the 2020/2021 national budget estimates for public servants and members of parliament.
He indicated that the 5% that was deducted from members of parliament salaries was agreed upon between government and the members of the parliament.
Members of parliament agreed on the deductions and did it out of goodwill because the Minister of Finance had announced that the government is in huge financial crisis, he said.
By 2019/2020 financial year the minister of finance announced that salaries of all public servants would not be increased because of a wanting state of the country finances. It was then that the minister explained to cabinet the need for austerity measures to ease the financial burden on government, then member of parliament agreed that 5% will be deducted from every Member of Parliaments monthly salary. In order to donate to the national purse, he said.
Sekatle further stated that, this matter needs to be understood in its intended form not as brutalised in social media platforms where people raving about how MPs are increasing money for themselves at the expense of the starving masses and electorate.
He pointed out that practically their salaries have remained the same if in the other year they were reduced by 5% which went back to the national purse and in the current financial year they were increased by a similar figure. Their salary structure has practically remained the same. I also would like to inform the nation that the overall amount collected from the 5% deductions amounts to M1, 220 513.00 which went back to the government coffers, he said.
