PUBLIC SERVICE STRIKE
Anybody with a head above his shoulders , sympathise and empathise with the
current strike by our civil servants . How does a government which buys its
ministers cars worth R2m in the middle of a recession , send the president
with trade missions comprising of 200 businessmen , to Lesotho , India , Sudan
, Russia , Turkey , Britain and China in the last four months , then turn
around and say the don't have money to pay civil servants .
Especially on the back of 35% increase in electricity tarrifs , housing price
inflation of 30% in the past decade . So the workers demands are not outrageous
.
My confusion comes when people demands to be paid " what they deserve ." What
does this mean ? Who determines what people deserve or not deserve . What
methods are used to determine this ? Does a teacher deserve to be paid more
than a politician or vice versa .Does a worker who have 5 children deserve to
be paid more than one with one child .
My other confusion is the relationship between the civil servants and the
public . Who employs who ? Who is the boss . If your answer is that civil
servants are employed by the public , then lets examine this relationship .
HOUSING ALLOWANCE
Civil servants demand R1000 housing allowance . Their bosses , the people who
elect them stay in rdp houses mostly . The majority of South African taxpayers
are too wealthy for a rdp house and too poor for a bonded house . So the
servants enjoy better housing than the boss . In fact among blacks , more
bonded houses belong to civil servants than ordinary citizens .
MEDICAL AID SUBSIDIES
Civil servants demand increased medical aid subsidies . Under 12% of South
Africans belong to a medical aid scheme . 60% of these are are civil servants .
Thus membership to a medical aid scheme is a luxury to about 80% of the South
African population . So are civil servants fighting for luxuries which the
people who pay their salaries can barely afford . The real irony here is they
(civil servants ) run and manage the same public health system they are so
afraid to utilise .
LIFESTYLE AUDITS
In short , generally in the third world , civil servants , enjoy better
lifestyles than the majority of their populations . How can civil service pay
more than the private sector , when private sector taxes pay for civil service
. Put differently , how can people who produce nothing , create nothing , earn
more than those who produce ? Is this not a form of slavery ?
SYSTEM FAILURE
Because of the lack of efficiency of the systems managed and controlled by
civil servants , South Africans find themselves having to provide for
themselves things which government tax them for . Security , private education
, private medical care . If the state , by extension civil servants , were
efficient , taxpayers could be saved millions of rands . But because the same
civil servants are grossly incompetent , taxpayers , at great coasts to
themselves are forced to hire private security companies , go to private
hospitals and send their children to private schools . Even the same civil
servants send their children to private schools , and follow the same general
pattern . So what are they really paid for ? Because all citizens are now
subjected to double taxation . That is paying for services , which government
taxed them for .
WHERE TO
If my assertions are right , things cannot continue as they are , something is
got to give . Our form of government must change , so should civil service .
Otherwise civil servants basi bambe inkunzi . All of the from the president
downwards . We pay them to afford things we can't afford ourselves , to deliver
services which we don't get . Is this the new meaning of democracy ?
I'm sorry if I stepped on some toes , but you break eggs to create an ommelette
. Let the truth be faced .
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