Cape Town - The South African Democratic Teachers Union has slammed the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) delivered by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni saying it was a slap in the face for hard-working teachers and public servants.
The union said the budget policy statement has clearly shown the unpreparedness of the National Treasury to honour the 2018 wage agreement.
"This is the worst form of provocation and an open attack on collective bargaining, of the Labour Relations Act and even spitting on the Freedom Charter which clearly states," Sadtu said.
The National Treasury wants the salary increase frozen in the next three years.
On Wednesday, Mboweni said the public sector bill has grown well above inflations in the past five years and that there was a need to slow its growth much slower in the next five years.
He said Minister of Public Service and Administration Senzo Mchunu and public service union leadership were meeting to discuss how best to reach common ground.
But, Sadtu said Mboweni made a mockery of the call to build a capable, effective and efficient development state.
"There is no way in which you can achieve such a state with public servants who are hungry and can’t afford even a meal, nor to feed their families.
“Such unhappy, overworked, demoralised workers will never be in a position to deliver the quality service which the president of the country always speaks about."
The teacher union said public servants were in fact going to be trapped in a vicious cycle of debt and vulnerable to loan sharks in order to make ends meet.
It also said it did not support Mboweni's call to forge a new consensus on public-sector employee compensation which is outside of the agreed upon bargaining structures.
Political Bureau