CONSULTANT EARNS E18M REVIEWING CIVIL SERVANTS’ SALARIES

MBABANE – It will cost the taxpayer over E18 million to pay the consultant who has been tasked with conducting a salary review for the over 40 000 civil servants in the country.

The figure is contained in the Report of the Finance Committee on the Supplementary Appropriation Bill, No.2 of 2025, which is yet to be debated and approved by Parliament. The exact figure of E18 million is what is contained in the report, but the figure stands to increase as it is stated that it is just 60 per cent of the cost.

In the report, it is stated that the Supplementary Appropriation Bill, No.2 of 2025 was tabled at the House of Assembly on February 14, 2025 and referred to the Finance Committee for further scrutiny and interrogation on the same date. The first reading of the Bill was done on February 17, 2025 and a workshop aimed at capacitating the Members of Parliament (MPs) on the provisions held on the same day.

Supplementary

It is stated that following the 2024/2025 budget, there have been requests from various line ministries and departments for a supplementary budget to finalise shortfalls and expenditures that were unforeseen during the budget process.

These estimates, the report states, are meant to provide for specific expenditure items which are deemed critical.
These, according to the report, include E25.5 million for the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS), E8 554 605 for shortfalls of the elderly grant, E60 million to support the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) to prioritise natural disasters and E101 million provision for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to cater for international relations.

Other expenditure items in the supplementary budget include a provision of E159 million to support operations for RENAC, E10 million to UNESWA to support its operations, E20 million for the Eswatini Revenue Service and E50 million for The Luke Commission to support their operations.

There is also an allocation of E25 million for the Ministry of Home Affairs to clear an outstanding bill for national celebrations. Under the capital programme, the report states that there are realignments and cuts that form the proposed supplementary budget.

Adjustment

The supplementary budget being requested under capital expenditure is a net adjustment of E48 665 283 cut from various projects to finance those that need additional funds in the current financial year and recurrent expenditure.
The committee made it known in the report that the appropriation of the supplementary budget will leave a financing gap of E58 763 273.

“Given the fiscal challenges the country is faced with, government is committed to continue monitoring the implementation of programmes within the limits of the budget and savings realised will be utilised to finance the gap,” reads part of the report.

Schedule 1 of the budget focuses on recurrent and the committee mentioned that the supplementary will be allocating the indicated amounts under each head and department to cater for the four per cent cost-of-living adjustment and other critical spending incurred during the course of the year.

The total amount recommended under the recurrent is E1 087 688 644. The budget will be fully financed within the 2024/2025 appropriated budget and overall expenditure ceiling will be maintained. It should be noted that when presenting the budget speech in Parliament last week, Minister for Finance Neal Rijkenberg announced that about E500 million has been allocated for the salary review in the next financial year, which begins in April.

The figure has not impressed the different unions that represent civil servants as they have said that it is too little.
Meanwhile, in September last year, government announced that the salary review exercise had begun.
At the time, it was announced that the firms that were engaged for the crucial exercise had started conducting job profiling in government ministries.

Review

This came after the Minister for Public Service, Mabulala Maseko, had commissioned the much-awaited salary review exercise in the public service. The salary review will also include the implementation of Phase II for junior security officers. When announcing the exercise, it was said that the ministry had, on July 1, 2024, signed a contract with the consultant (Emergence Growth, partnering with a local company, Umelusi Capital) that was awarded the tender.

It was said that the work towards the exercise had already commenced for a period not exceeding 12 months.
According to a communiqué that was issued by the Ministry of Public Service, the process kick-started with job profiling.

Responsibilities

Job profiling is a process of collecting and analysing information about a job to identify the essential functions, duties and responsibilities required to perform the job successfully. The exercise also included job evaluation, where the value of jobs in the public service were to be assessed in order to determine the worth of individual jobs and the compensation to be paid to employees who hold those jobs.

The purpose of job evaluation is to ensure that employees are paid fairly for the work they do. Job evaluation can be used to set pay grades for jobs, to determine the starting salary for a new employee and to award salary increases.
 “To kick-start the process, the consultant conducted job profiling exercises for some of the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs staff. More of these consultations have been scheduled all across government,” it was stated in the communication.

As per the Eswatini Government policy, the remuneration review exercise, which incorporates job evaluation and grading, is conducted every five years. The last time the exercise was conducted was in 2016. In 2022, government announced that E15 million has been set aside for the exercise. However, the ministers for Public Service and Finance stated in separate interviews that after issuing the tender in December 2022, no consultant showed interest and the ones that showed interest did not have the qualities that government was looking for.

Redundant

Government had to advertise the tender again until July, when government finally signed with the two firms. Noteworthy, the exercise will also inform government on the posts that are still relevant and those redundant.
Worth noting is that last year, the Minister for Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, told Members of Parliament (MPs) during the quarterly budget performance report that over 5 000 to 7 000 jobs had been found redundant in the establishment register.

Further, the Minister for Public Service lamented that government needed around E700 million for exit packages for employees who needed to be relieved of their duties in the public service under the exercise Enhanced Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme (EVERS).

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