South Africa - PO top brass take 26% raise amid strike

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Post Office top brass take 26% raise amid strike

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TOP managers at the troubled South African Post Office have awarded themselves salary increases four times the
rate of inflation, as a strike for a 15% wage increase by workers enters its third month.

The company’s net loss has risen to R359m for the year, from R337m the previous year.


The total salary bill for the four executive directors on the parastatal’s books, together with the 20 senior managers, jumped to R32.5m in the year ended March, according to an unpublished draft of the annual report obtained by Business Day. That is a 26% increase from the R25.8m paid to the executives the previous year. The Reserve Bank expects the annual rate of inflation to average 6.2% this year.

The Post Office had not tabled the report by the September 30 deadline, as stipulated by the Public Finance Management Act.

Many of the company’s 24,000 staff have been on strike since the second week of September, led by the Communication Workers Union, in support of a 15% across-the-board wage increase demand. The company is offering an annual increase of up to 6.5%, for two years. Asked why management was able to increase its salaries by four times the inflation rate while limiting increases to employees to the inflation rate, Post Office spokesman Lungile Lose yesterday declined to comment on information "that was illegally obtained", referring to the draft annual report.