Latest news with #Workers'Month
News24
20-05-2025
- Health
- News24
The real work of nation building begins on the front line
The budget should serve the people. Yet, in too many South African communities, the teachers, nurses, and doctors who are needed most are not in the classrooms or clinics – they are unemployed, fighting for the chance to serve. The question is not whether the state employs too many people but rather whether it employs them where and when they are needed. This is the real challenge behind the politically contested public sector wage bill discourse: how do we invest in a workforce that actually builds our nation? As the third iteration of the 2025 budget is tabled during Workers' Month, we are presented with a timely opportunity to shift the national conversation towards real solutions. The discourse around the public sector wage bill has become needlessly divisive at a moment when our country needs unity, clarity, and a government that brings people together. 'Bloated' public workforce vs frontline staff shortages The public sector wage bill – sometimes criticised as 'bloated' – has in recent years become one of the most politically charged aspects of our national budget and often a scapegoat for the deep challenges facing public service delivery. As it accounts for around 35-40% of government spending, critics have increasingly pressured National Treasury to reduce it in the name of budget restraint and efficiency. However, when one walks into any public clinic or school, the story on the ground is different. No one is complaining about too many doctors for the patients or too many teachers for the learners. If anything, the opposite is true: long queues, overworked nurses, and overcrowded classrooms have all undermined the quality and reach of basic services. The contradiction is even clearer when placed alongside the country's mounting teacher, nurse and doctor shortages. As of 2024, there were over 30 000 teaching vacancies, nearly 16 000 nursing vacancies, and 1 800 vacant doctor posts in our public health system. However, when one walks into any public clinic or school, the story on the ground is very different. No one is complaining about too many doctors for the patients or too many teachers for the learners. If anything, the opposite is true: long queues, overworked nurses, and overcrowded classrooms have all undermined the quality and reach of basic services. The contradiction is even clearer when placed alongside the country's mounting teacher, nurse and doctor shortages. As of 2024, there were over 30 000 teaching vacancies, nearly 16 000 nursing vacancies, and 1 800 vacant doctor posts in our public health system. Clearly, something is off. Thousands of trained professionals remain unemployed, while the public services that rely on them are under extreme strain. The tension remains, though spending on public employees is perceived as too high for the value it delivers, yet frontline shortages in schools and clinics remain impossible to ignore. A chance to finally get the public workforce right South Africa doesn't necessarily have too many public workers, we have too few in the right places. The real issue is not the absolute size of the public sector wage bill, but its composition and effectiveness. While some state-owned enterprises and government departments have faced legitimate scrutiny for top-heavy wage structures, this critique does not apply across the board. In fact, labour-intensive services like education and health face the opposite imbalance: they are under-resourced at the frontline, weakening the quality of public services South Africans rely on. Put differently: South Africa doesn't need a smaller public sector; we need a smarter one. One that prioritises frontline staffing, corrects structural imbalances, and ensures that every rand spent translates into better services for all. Budget 3.0 is a powerful opportunity to make this a reality. A Budget 3.0 that builds a functioning public sector In a bid to contain the public sector wage bill, the government has been blunt with a response characterised by ceilings, freezes on posts, and limiting headcounts of frontline services. However, this approach has come at a high cost with little to show for it. Rather than eliminating inefficiency, the government has effectively eroded the very frontline capacity our public services depend on – teachers, nurses, and doctors, while delivering little in the way of long-term savings or improved outcomes. The finance minister's welcome course correction acknowledges that the austerity, characterised by blunt measures like hiring freezes and headcount limitations, has not been effective in building a public sector that works for all. Schools and healthcare facilities face greater constraints in delivering quality public services for all, while wasteful and irregular spending continues without much recourse. Now is the opportunity for the finance minister to table a budget that pays more than lip service towards course correction, not with symbolic cuts, but with strategic investment. A budget that builds a nation must take seriously the need to absorb skilled, unemployed professionals into our public sector. Not only will this reduce joblessness, but it will also restore the functionality of services people rely on every day. Reinvesting in public services, the right way Rather than blanket cuts, Treasury must adopt a targeted approach that protects and expands frontline posts in education and health, where human resource shortages are well-documented and the returns to nation-building are immediate. Despite the deeply regressive proposal of a VAT hike, Budgets 1.0 and 2.0 showed early signs of promise on the expenditure side, with commitments to strengthen basic education and health care. That momentum must be reinforced rather than being reversed. This investment is not only urgent, but possible without resorting to a VAT hike. The now-scrapped VAT increase would have raised an estimated R11.5 billion this year, after accounting for zero-rating, but that same revenue space can be secured through more progressive means. As part of the Budget Justice Coalition (BJC), we have proposed alternatives that include targeting illicit financial flows and tax evasion (estimated at up to R800 billion), sustainably drawing on available reserves such as the Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account (GFECRA) (R150-250 billion), and temporarily freezing GEPF contributions (R15-30 billion) as a stopgap for 2025/26 while longer-term reforms are pursued. A meaningful response to fiscal pressure must begin with a top-down efficiency review to reduce bloated management layers and redirect resources to where they are most needed. Treasury should also reform budget structures to enable departments to prioritise service delivery and report on outcomes, not just spending. Finally, greater transparency around staffing, vacancies, and absorption rates can help rebuild public trust and ensure that budget decisions reflect both fairness and value. Budget 3.0 can be a turning point if it focuses on restoring the state's capacity to serve and shifting the public wage bill debate from cost to value. Budget 3.0 is a test, not just of Treasury's numbers, but of its nation-building vision. In a moment of contention and contradiction, the government has the chance to table a budget that restores frontline capacity, affirms public dignity, and builds the South Africa we all deserve to live in. Lencoasa is a budget analyst at SECTION27 and chairperson of the Budget Justice Coalition.
Daily Maverick
15-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Reversing austerity: How Budget 3.0 can restore educational integrity and infrastructure in South Africa.
More than 23,000 posts in education departments have been cut, and now our classrooms are paying the price for austerity. Budget 3.0 will be tabled on 21 May 2025 — a historic moment for our nation's democracy, which had until now failed to meaningfully challenge many of the National Treasury's regressive decisions. While we welcome the ruling that declared the proposed fiscal framework that contained a regressive VAT increase as unlawful, it is only the beginning. We must remain steadfast in our efforts to hold the Treasury accountable to all its constitutional obligations. The new Budget cannot continue on an austere path, which systematically dismantles the public infrastructure and services upon which the most vulnerable depend. Nowhere is the damage of austerity more visible — or more devastating — than in our social services, particularly education, where the effects are especially acute. The constitutional right to basic education — an immediately realisable right — has been eroded by years of budget cuts, staffing reductions, and chronic underfunding. Politicians often repeat the refrain that the government must 'trim the fat', but what has been slashed over the past decade is not excess — it is the very muscle of our public education system. These cuts have gutted the core of teaching and learning: fewer teachers, overcrowded classrooms, inadequate infrastructure, and limited support services. The result is a generation of learners denied not just quality education, but the tools to fully realise their potential in a democratic society. Austerity is driving teachers out of the classroom Perhaps the most devastating impact has been on our teaching workforce. As we mark Workers' Month, we are confronted with the catastrophic reality of plummeting headcounts in the public education sector. Education departments' most recent annual reports show that 477,774 posts were occupied in the 2023/24 financial year. By the end of January 2025, this had decreased to 454,640. This means that in one financial year, more than 23,000 — almost 5% — of warm bodies in the public education workforce were decimated. When including funded but vacant positions, the number rises to more than 46,000 — nearly 8.5% of the workforce stripped away. Those who remain do so under increasingly arduous conditions: overcrowded classrooms, chronic shortages of materials, and mounting administrative burdens. Many teachers now work far beyond their contracted hours, effectively subsidising the education system with their unpaid labour. Furthermore, the Treasury's R11-billion retirement incentive for public sector workers will probably accelerate this exodus by encouraging a wave of early retirements without a parallel plan to fill the gaps. This is not a profession in decline by choice — teachers want to teach. Austerity has created a crisis where experienced educators are leaving the profession in droves, while fewer young people see teaching as a viable career path. Unfunded mandates, unrealised rights It is deeply contradictory for the government to be cutting education posts while at the same time increasing its obligations to learners. Since the Bela Bill was signed into law in 2024, Grade R has become a legal obligation. Yet no corresponding funding has been allocated to support its implementation — there is no budget to increase teacher headcounts or equip schools with the infrastructure and resources needed to accommodate this expanded intake. Parliament should not pass budgets with unfunded mandates — they undermine the rule of law and put constitutional rights at risk. The underfunding of Grade R is a clear and urgent example. Budget 3.0 must end the infrastructure crisis in schools The physical infrastructure of our schools tells an equally troubling story. It has been 12 years and counting for the government to eradicate pit latrines from all schools, which were officially declared illegal under the Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure. Despite legal guarantees, many students still attend schools without adequate sanitation, a reliable water supply, or safe buildings. In 2023, the Department of Basic Education estimated that it would need approximately R42-billion each year to eliminate all backlogs and have well-functioning school infrastructure in all public schools by 2030. Even if current spending plans are protected against the VAT shortfall, the government will spend an annual average of R17.6-billion on school infrastructure over the next three years, less than half the required amount. Even more troubling is that the government amended the Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure to remove critical deadlines for addressing these backlogs. This shift actively retrogresses against established frameworks to safeguard the right to education as an immediately realisable one. Deadlines are essential for driving implementation, enabling proper planning, and securing ring-fenced funding. By scrapping them, the government has weakened accountability and signalled a retreat from its constitutional duties. While the rest of the world invests in equipping learners for a digital and knowledge-based future, South Africa's education system is still denied the minimum resources it requires to equip youth to actively participate and contribute to our future. We stopped the VAT hike — now we must reverse the cuts The victory against VAT increases has demonstrated that organised resistance to austerity can succeed. However, we must build on this momentum to demand not just the prevention of further cuts, but the restoration of what has been lost and investment in what should be. Our education system needs immediate, substantial increases in funding for teacher salaries and recruitment, dignified and safe school infrastructure, learning materials, and support services. Even Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has conceded to what we have long argued: austerity has failed to achieve its goal of reducing national debt. Instead, it has shifted the burden on to poor and working-class communities through degraded public services while economic growth stagnates. If spending cuts have failed to deliver the promised stability or growth, then we must ask: why are we still sacrificing our teachers and our children's future at the altar of austerity? DM Mahfouz Raffee is a researcher at Equal Education. Matshidiso Lencoasa is a budget analyst at SECTION27. Both organisations form part of the Budget Justice Coalition.
eNCA
13-05-2025
- Business
- eNCA
Repatriation: A crucial service that brings loved ones home
SPONSORED - In times of loss, the concept of home takes on a deeper meaning. For families who have lost a loved one away from home - whether abroad or within the country - repatriation, the process of bringing them back to their place of origin, becomes more than just a logistical necessity. It is an emotional journey. During Workers' Month in May, we shine a spotlight on repatriation. As the world becomes increasingly connected and remote work grows more common, more people - whether high-flying professionals or everyday families - are re-evaluating where they truly want to live. Whether guided by cultural traditions, a desire for a final resting place among ancestors, or the comfort of familiarity, repatriating a departed loved one is a way of honouring their life and legacy. In a globalised world, it's a deeply personal act that brings loved ones to their final place of rest - back to where their story began. For many, the choice to work far from home - be it for financial, political, social or personal reasons – presents a unique set of challenges. One seldom discussed but vitally important for consideration is repatriation. Understanding repatriation What happens when someone passes away while working or holidaying far from home – locally or abroad? Would you or your family know what steps to take? Would you have the resources to bring them home? In this context, repatriation refers to the transportation of a deceased loved one to their home country or place of origin. It is both a deeply emotional and logistical process - one that AVBOB approaches with care, dignity and professionalism. 'At AVBOB, our aim is to reunite loved ones with their families, no matter where in the world they may be. We provide a comprehensive repatriation service because we understand that closure, comfort and cultural respect matter deeply during a time of grief,' says Adriaan Bester, Executive: Funeral Products and Services at AVBOB. With more than 350 branches and a fleet exceeding 1 000 vehicles - including state-of-the-art refrigerated units - AVBOB is equipped to handle repatriation both across South Africa and internationally. Our vehicles meet all local and international legislation and safety standards, and our extensive network of funeral professionals ensures seamless coordination and compassionate care throughout the process. Whether a loved one has passed away abroad, in another province, or in a remote part of the country, AVBOB 's Repatriation Hub stands ready to assist. Our goal is simple: to bring your loved one home with dignity and care. Why repatriation matters Grieving is already a heavy burden. When a death occurs far from home, logistical complications, emotional stress, and unfamiliar environments intensify that burden. Why repatriation matters Grieving is already a heavy burden. When a death occurs far from home, logistical complications, emotional stress, and unfamiliar environments intensify that burden. Repatriation offers families Greater control over funeral arrangements in a familiar setting; Relief from complex legal or cultural requirements in foreign territories; The ability to honour cultural and religious customs, particularly the importance of laying a loved one to rest in their geographic or spiritual home; Potential cost savings, particularly for extended families wishing to attend local funeral proceedings; and Emotional comfort and closure, knowing their loved one is nearby and accessible for visits or memorials. 'The last thing a grieving family should have to worry about is paperwork, logistics or cross-border protocols,' adds Bester. 'That's why we take care of every step – so families can focus on healing and honouring their loved one.' Who can use AVBOB's Repatriation Service? AVBOB's Repatriation Service is available to: AVBOB policyholders Non-policyholders Independent funeral undertakers Corporates Government institutions For AVBOB policyholders, domestic repatriation is included in their FREE funeral benefits* - a testament to our commitment to supporting South African families in times of need. Find peace of mind Let AVBOB walk the journey with you so that when the time comes, you can grieve without worry and say goodbye in the place that feels most like home. To make use of AVBOB 's Repatriation Service, contact our team on 074 899 5413 or email [email protected].
