Africa-Press – Botswana. Government will soon pay civil servants salaries in phases effective from April 1, 2022.The first group, which includes the President, Members of Parliament and other ministeries will get their salaries in the first week around the 7th, followed by the industrial court, ministries of health, infrastructure, transport and communications, and defence on the second week while teachers and the Botswana Defence Force will get their adjusted pay in the third week.
Over the years, the cost of the civil service wage bill has remained high, rising from about P21 billion in 2017-2018 – which was the beginning of NDP11, to about P29 billion in the 2020-2021 fiscal year, partly helped by increases awarded in 2019 and 2020. This is despite the government’s interventions of limiting the number of vacancies filled and embarking on a limited programme of outsourcing non-core jobs, the size.
The wage bill has been said to be overburdening recurrent and total expenditure and that more priority is given to paying wages than other equally (or more) important expenditure needs.
During the 2020-2021 financial year, the wage bill was estimated to be 16% of the GDP.
The Minister of Finance and Economic Development Peggy Serame recently announced that there are efforts to reduce and effectively manage the government wage bill, which will be implemented through the Workforce Planning System developed by the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), through the Botswana Public Service Workforce Strategy and Workforce Plans Project that started in July 2021.
The civil service wage bill for this financial year 2022-2023 is around P28.3 billion.
Commenting on the development, deputy secretary-general Botswana Federation of Public, Private and Parastatal Sector Unions Ketlhalefile Motshegwa said unions have not been consulted on the issue.
“There is a need to understand what motivated these changes more so that there have not been consultations with workers and trade unions prior to making this decision, raising the question as to why the government continues to engage in unilateral decisions on matters concerning workers,” he said.
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