South Africa Has a Full Payroll and an Empty State.

Dear employer

South Africa’s employers are not asking for anything exceptional. They are asking for a functioning state. Roads that hold. Water that runs. Licences issued in weeks, not years. They are paying for these things. They are not getting them.

In this episode of The Employer’s Voice, Gerhard Papenfus makes the case that this is not a resource problem. It is a political one.

Municipalities where as much as 60% of rates revenue goes directly to salaries. Civil service workforces 20 to 35% larger than required. Employees sitting at home on suspension, on full pay, for over a year. And at every turn, politicians defending the system that produces these outcomes — and calling it standing up for workers.

Gerhard Papenfus asks a direct question: which workers? Because the business owner who cannot open his doors, cannot process a zoning approval, cannot get a connection made — that person employs workers too. And nobody is protecting them.

A smaller civil service, properly paid, properly equipped, and actually held to account, will deliver more than the current one. This is not ideology. It is the only logical outcome of accountability applied consistently.

NEASA will keep making this argument. On behalf of every South African employer who is tired of subsidising a system that has chosen protection over performance.

For more information
NEASA Media Department
media@neasa.co.za