MBABANE – Government has provisionally set aside E160 million to deal with appeals arising from the 2025 public service salary review.
Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service Mthunzi Shabangu said the amount is based on the number of appeals received during the 2016 salary review.
He said the provisional budget could be reviewed depending on the number of appeals submitted by civil servants.
Shabangu said the ministry is still processing appeals received by the August 31, 2026 deadline, including those submitted by civil servants on the final day.
He said the deadline had effectively been extended because August 31 fell on the Umhlanga holiday.
“There have been no signs yet that show that more people are still to submit their appeals,” Shabangu said.
He said there had been few appeals after government issued the July circular on the full implementation of the salary review.
“As we issued the circular in July for the full implementation of the salary review, there were no submissions. However, in August, there were minimal submissions,” he said.
Shabangu said he could not guarantee that the ministry would reject any further appeals submitted after the deadline, but stressed that civil servants had been given sufficient time to lodge their complaints.
“The ministry is still computing the appeals and sorting them out. Most of the appeals were on job evaluation and grading. The appeals will be implemented in the next financial year,” he said.
It is worth noting that government’s financial year begins on April 1 of each year.
However, Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General Lot Vilakati said the union does not know how many appeals have been lodged.
He said affected civil servants submitted their appeals directly to the ministry rather than through their unions.
Vilakati said this also made it difficult for the union to establish whether everyone who wanted to appeal had managed to do so before the deadline.
Questions about the salary review and appeals were also raised during the Senate Portfolio Committee debate on the Ministry of Public Service’s First-Quarter Performance Report.
The ministry was commended for opening an appeals window for civil servants who were dissatisfied with the outcome of the salary review.
Senators, however, raised concerns about the time taken to resolve previous salary review appeals.
They noted that appeals arising from the 2016 Salary Review Exercise were only concluded in the 2022/23 financial year.
They, therefore, wanted to know when the latest appeals would be determined and when the outcomes would be implemented.
In its response to Senate, the ministry said it expected to complete the determination of appeals during the 2026/27 financial year.
The ministry said the outcomes would then be considered in the budget for the 2027/28 financial year, with implementation expected during that financial year.
At the time of the Senate debate, the appeals window was still open until August 31, 2026, particularly for appeals arising from the implementation of allowances in July 2026.
The ministry has since been processing the submissions following the closure of the window.
It said most appeals had been received after the implementation of the reviewed salaries in October 2025, while very few had been received following the implementation of allowances in July 2026.
The ministry said after the appeals window closed, it would begin determining the appeals submitted.
This process is expected to involve professional job evaluation and remuneration specialists who were not involved in preparing the current salary review report.
The Senate Portfolio Committee also sought clarity on the concerns surrounding civil servants in grades A and B.
This followed confusion over the ministry’s earlier statement that these employees had received 100 per cent implementation of the salary review in October 2025.
The ministry explained that some grades A and B had not received an upward adjustment, while others had been downgraded in line with recommendations contained in the salary review report.
It said government had made specific commitments to employees in these grades under the Collective Agreement signed with public sector unions on October 15, 2025.
One of the commitments was a once-off payment equivalent to five per cent of an employee’s annual basic salary.
The payment was made as an ex-gratia benefit outside the salary review report.
Government also committed to moving employees in grades A and B from their current notch in the old grade to the corresponding notch in the new salary structure.
This differed from employees in Grade C and above, who were required to start at Notch 1 of the new salary structure in line with the salary review recommendations.
Another commitment was the full implementation of the revised housing allowance for Grades A and B.
The allowance was increased from E325 to E2 000 per month, while employees in the other grades had to wait until July 2026 for the revised allowance.
Meanwhile, the Collective Agreement Circular of 2025, under Article 7.1, states that government took measures to ensure the salary review was conducted scientifically, using the principles of the Paterson System of Job Evaluation.
However, it allows employees to appeal where they have valid grounds.
The circular states that appeals must be submitted in writing through the relevant controlling officer.
It further provides that appeals should be lodged within 30 working days of the issuance of the salary review circular on October 27, 2025.
According to the circular, an appeal may be considered where additional information, which was available when the job was evaluated, was not taken into account.
An appeal may also be considered where there is substantial proof that the scope of a job has changed.
However, individual officers cannot appeal without their controlling officer’s endorsement. Appeals based on comparisons with jobs outside the same job family will also not qualify for review.
The salary review followed the submission of the final draft report by consultants Emergence Human Capital, trading as Emergence Growth, in partnership with Umelusi Partners.
The Government Negotiations Team and public sector unions subsequently negotiated the implementation of the salary review recommendations and reached an agreement on how they would be implemented.
Shabangu said most of the appeals had come from civil servants whose grades had either been reviewed downwards or remained unchanged.
“The most affected were those whose pay grades did not move during the salary review. Their remuneration was not reduced as they were already in the system,” he said.
He explained that the changes would mainly affect employees who were yet to be promoted or recruited into the affected grades.
The Paterson System of Job Evaluation was adopted for the 2025 Salary Review after being endorsed by the parties involved in the process.
All established government positions were evaluated under the system, resulting in the new salary grading and structure.
Under the new structure, Grades A4 and A5 were discontinued to create a more standardised grading system.
The circular states that officers whose positions remained in the same category and grade would move from their existing pay grade to the first notch of the new government salary structure.
Grades A and B, however, would move on a notch-to-notch basis.
Where an employee’s existing salary was higher than the salary attached to the new grade of their position, the employee would retain the higher salary as a personal right until the relevant grade catches up with that salary, where applicable.
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