ANOTHER WAIT FOR SALARY REVIEW

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.

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