Bame Piet
28 March 2008
Gaborone — Government has spent over P1.5 million on the Presidential Commission on the Review of Salaries and Conditions of Service for the Public Service appointed in June last year.
The commission was appointed to review conditions of service, salary scales, allowances and fringe benefits for the public service and submitted a report to President Festus Mogae last November.
"Government is satisfied with the endeavours of the commissioners with respect to their comprehensiveness and depth in discharging their mandate because in coming up with its recommendations, the commission received evidence from public officers during country-wide consultative meetings; reviewed relevant literature; and benchmarked with South Africa, Namibia, Australia and New Zealand for comparison purposes," the Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration has said. The commission considered pay and benefit structures in private and parastatal sectors.
Kwelagobe said the commission had developed four scenarios of an adjusted salary structure at 15, 20, 25, and 30 percent across the board increase, including same inter-grade differential adjustments. "In the final analysis, the commission recommended that the 30 percent salary adjustment be adopted," the minister said.
The commission looked at the conditions of service and other entitlements for the president, vice president, the speaker, ministers, deputy speaker, assistant ministers, Leader of the Opposition, MPs, Members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi, and councilors. The commissioners visited Namibia and United Kingdom for benchmarking.
"In addition to awarding a 15 percent increase across the board, government decided to increase all allowances by 15 percent," Kwelagobe said.
He explained that the reasons for the increase were that the 15 percent was one of the scenarios developed by the commission; that government expenditure should not exceed 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP); that the expenditure on development projects at 25.4 percent of total expenditure should not fall far short of the agreed target of 30 percent of total government expenditure; and that government budget deficit should not exceed three percent of GDP, which is the international norm for an acceptable deficit ratio.
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