FinMin Godongwana Lays Down the Gauntlet on Public Sector Wages

LOCAL NEWS

• As noted yesterday, FinMin Godongwana made a firm move against unions and in line with Govt's fiscal consolidation push by keeping the public sector wage allocation flat for the 2022/23 financial year. The public sector wage bill is one of the largest items in the budget, accounting for around a third of expenditure.
  • The 2021 medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) assumes no pensionable salary increases for public servants in the 2022-2023 financial year. However, it does provide room for a 1.5% increase annually over the period
• Eskom moves to stage 2 load-shedding from stage 4, with units at Koeberg, Medupi, Kriel, Kusile & Tukuta power stations returning to service.
  • Eskom notes that a unit at Majuba & Arnot stations tripped and one at Matla was forced to shut down – warning that the summer load-shedding forecast for summer 2021/22 is likely to remain severely constrained for the near future
• Energy Minister, Gwede Mantashe, has announced 25 more preferred bidders for the country's Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).
  • These bidders will now have six months to complete all financing and project agreements, which Mantashe says will inject around R50 billion and 14,000 jobs into the economy.
  • The minister couldn't comment on the latest round of load shedding, saying that his department (energy) was not in charge of Eskom and couldn't do as it pleased with the utility. He said load shedding was due to Eskom not running existing capacity efficiently.
• SA passes the 22m mark for total vaccine doses administered, equating to 30.3% of fully vaccinated adults & 37% with a single dose.

Data:

• 1300BST: Sep Trade Balance exp at 35.2bn vs 42.4bp prior
• 1300BST: Sep Monthly budget balance exp at -10.3bn vs -39.3bn