SOME HEAD TEACHERS: STOP 3% COLA

MANZINI – Despite that all head teachers are set to benefit from the three per cent cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA) from government, some head teachers say ‘no thank you’.

These head teachers claim that their salaries had been eroded by E7 361.79 and the proposed E642.31 CoLA per month should be stopped.
A week ago, the Minister of Public Service, Mabulala Maseko, through a press statement, announced that they signed a collective agreement to implement a three per cent increase of the monthly basic salary across the board, with effect from April 1, 2022. In addition to this, he said they also agreed on a once-off payment of one per cent of annual basic salary across the board.

Agreement

Following this pronouncement by government, some civil servants, through the Public Sector Unions (PSUs) of Swaziland, have been mocking the collective agreement by government and the Eswatini Principals Association (EPA).Their contest over the agreement was further emphasised by the hike in the cost of fuel by E2.30 per litre and also the increment of bread prices by 20.76 per cent. On Friday, head teachers under the banner of the Swaziland Association of Schools Administrators (SASA), a union for head teachers and deputies within the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), held a meeting wherein they raised that inflation since 2017 had corroded their salaries by 25.03 per cent. According to the Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE), the inflation rate in the past five financial years tallies 28.03 per cent. However, it is worth noting that in the 2020/21 financial year, government offered civil servants three per cent CoLA and a once-off payment of one per cent of their annual salaries.

Inflation

The inflation in 2017, which was a year after the civil servants had a salary review, was 6.22 per cent. In 2018, it stood at 4.82 per cent, while in 2019 and 2020, it was 2.60 per cent and 3.87 per cent, respectively. In the year 2021, the inflation rate was 5.23 per cent while earlier on this year; it was recorded at 5.29 per cent. Given the aforementioned inflation rates, the head teachers supposed that in 2017, their salaries should have been reviewed at the same percentage, which could have amounted to E1 455.22 per month. This would have improved their remuneration to E23 395.75. In the subsequent year, their pay when improved at the same percentage as the inflation (4.82 per cent), would have hiked by E1 197.82 resulting in a gross salary of E24 850.97 per month. An increment of 2.6 per cent in 2019 would have seen them amassing an additional E677.27 per month, resulting in a monthly salary of E26 048.78 while in 2020; an increment equivalent to the inflation rate would have afforded them E1 034.30, which would have raised their salaries to E26 726.05.

In 2021, if head teachers were awarded CoLA equivalent to the inflation rate which was 5.23 per cent, they would have been offered E1 451.87 per month. This would have resulted in them amassing a gross salary of E27 760.35 per month. For this year, if CoLA was awarded at the 5.29 per cent, they would have a gross salary of E29 212.21 as it would have been improved by E1 545.33. This, in essence, means that they would now be earning a gross salary of E30 757.54 as the CoLA equivalent to the inflation of the past five years amounts to E7 361.79. On the other hand, the lowest paid teacher, who possesses a Primary Teaching Diploma (PTD), would have amassed a hike of E2 596.26 as their monthly gross salary would be E10 847.18. However, they are currently earning E5 486.97 per month and have an annual salary of E65 844.

Signed

In light of this, our sister publication – Eswatini News – reported that PSUs had kick-started a move to try and stop government from processing the CoLA agreement which it signed with EPA. It was reported that the PSUs were working on collecting concrete evidence to build a prima facie case, which would see them successfully applying for a court interdict, which would stop government from implementing the CoLA agreement. Eswatini News reported that the PSUs secretariat said they were working against the clock to compile the evidence as soon as possible and file the application, so that they could get the court interdict before government ran its payroll for the month (July 2022). Worth noting is that government is planning to implement the collective agreement this month, by paying all ununionised civil servants.

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