Times Of Swaziland: ANOTHER WAIT FOR SALARY REVIEW

ANOTHER WAIT FOR SALARY REVIEW
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Nonduduzo Kunene on 17/01/2023 09:15:00


MBABANE – Civil servants’ salaries will remain the same even in the next
financial year as the salary review timelines have to be shifted.
This comes after Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Service,
Sipho Tsabedze, in a letter dated January 12, 2023, told the public sector
unions (PSUs) secretariat that following the advert that was issued on November
22, 2022, where firms were invited to show interest in conducting the salary
review exercise, there were no service providers who showed interest in the
tender. Tsabedze said they would re-advertise the tender with the hope that this
time around, firms would show interest.
Process
The PS explained that since the tendering process had started afresh, it would
not follow the initial timelines but it would be shifted. He said the reason
they would not force the consultant to stick to the initial timelines, was
because they did not want to rush the exercise as it was bulky. “The salary
review exercise is bulky, therefore, we will not rush the consultant to finish
the exercise,” he said. Tsabedze said the consultant that would eventually be
engaged would be given enough time to conduct the exercise. He said the exercise
was scheduled to take 12 months and that would be the case even with the
consultant that would be engaged after the re-advertisement. The PS said for
that reason, the findings or recommendations of the exercise were likely not to
be implemented in the next financial year as the consultant would be busy with
the consultations.
The exercise includes job evaluation, which might result in some vacancies being
scrapped, as well as the normal salary review. This means civil servants are
likely to reap the fruits of the exercise after the next financial year. The PS
explained that the tender would be advertised without any changes because the
consensus they got was that firms missed the advert, not that they were unhappy
with certain aspects of the tender. The agreement to conduct a salary review
exercise was reached last year July during the Joint Negotiation Forum (JNF),
which is formed by the Government Negotiating Team (GNT) and the four PSUs made
up of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), Swaziland
Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU), National Public Service and Allied Workers
Union (NAPSAWU) and the Swaziland National Association of Government Accounting
Personnel (SNAGAP).
The salary review was eventually the first on the JNF agenda after the
Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Commision’s (CMAC) intervention. The
PSUs leaders wanted the salary review to be first of the JNF agenda while the
GNT prioritised cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA). The parties reached a deadlock
and ended up at CMAC but were sent back to resolve the matter amicably, which
saw the PSUs winning the order of the agenda items. Worth noting, the last
salary review was in 2016 and was conducted by LCC Capital Consultant. The team
leader was Enziwe Dube.  Some of the findings of that review were not
implemented and as a result they formed part of this year’s JNF. These
included travelling and housing allowances adjustments.