EXPLAINER: How much South African MPs earn and what they do for it
South Africa's members of parliament (MPs) are responsible for making laws, overseeing the work of the executive and enabling public participation by providing a national forum for debating issues of concern.
In the 2024/25 financial year, parliament passed 28 bills, a marked difference from the 95 bills passed the previous year.
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At the same time, president Cyril Ramaphosa approved a 3.8% pay increase for MPs, effective from 1 April 2025. While this date has passed, the increase is backdated, meaning MPs will receive the outstanding amount.
In this explainer, Africa Check looks at how much MPs earn and what they are paid to do.
TL;DR
- The lowest salary an MP in the national assembly or national council of provinces (NCOP) will earn in 2025/26 is R1,322,968. The highest is R3,284,911.
- Although MPs must be available to the people they represent, just over 30% of working days were allocated to constituency duties in 2025.
- However, committees - parliament's "engine room" - are where much of the lawmaking and oversight work is done.
How pay is set
MPs receive annual salary increases based on the recommendations of the Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers.
For 2025/26, the commission recommended that all public office bearers receive a 4.1% increase, but Ramaphosa agreed to 3.8% for MPs.
What MPs earn
Source: Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers
What MPs are paid to do
- Make laws: debate and pass legislation that promotes constitutional values, social and economic justice, and responsive governance.
- Enable public participation: engage with communities and stakeholders to ensure that citizen views are reflected, particularly in legislation.
- Oversee the work of the executive: hold the cabinet accountable through reports, debates, and written and oral questions.
Africa Check asked constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos about the drop in the number of bills passed in 2024/25. He said that he suspected the main reason might have been the formation of the government of national unity (GNU), "which has made it very difficult for the government to change its policies or adopt any new policies".
"The GNU consists of political parties from across the political spectrum and never agreed to a clear set of policies, only a vague set of principles."
De Vos directed Africa Check to clause 19 of the multiparty coalition agreement signed by Ramaphosa, which deals with "sufficient consensus".
In effect, "the Democratic Alliance and the African National Congress have to agree to the tabling of any new bills". This agreement was not legally enforceable, De Vos said, but did reflect a broader reality, namely that without ANC and DA support, parliament would not be able to pass bills opposed by opposition parties.
"The problem was illustrated with the difficulties in passing the [2025/26] budget, which the DA initially did not support. It forced the minister of finance to redo the budget."
The benefits
South Africa's MPs are provided with "facilities" to enable them to perform their duties, parliamentary spokesperson Moloto Mothapo told Africa Check.
"These facilities are regulated, capped, and subject to strict use conditions," he said.
How MPs spend their time
The work of MPs is divided into parliamentary sessions and constituency periods. In constituency periods, MPs must be available to the people they represent and report back on what is happening in parliament.
According to the dates outlined in the 2025 parliamentary programme, out of 224 working days, 71 (or 31.7%) were allocated to constituency duties.
When they are in parliament, MPs attend:
- Plenary groups. All the members of a house (either the national assembly or the NCOP) meet in one group, debate recommendations from committees and take final decisions.
- Joint sittings. Members of both the national assembly and NCOP meet for proceedings, such as the president's state of the nation address.
- Committee meetings. There are over 40 committees in the national assembly and 15 in the NCOP.
Committees - parliament's 'engine room'
Committees have been described as the engine room of parliament because they are where much of the lawmaking and oversight work is done. Committees report regularly to the house, where their recommendations are debated and final decisions taken.
There are different types of committees:
- Portfolio committees: made up of members of the national assembly; one for each government.
- Select committees: oversee the work of government departments; made up of NCOP members; each committee covers more than one national department.
- Internal committees: deal with matters affecting the running of parliament.
- Ad hoc committees: appointed when a specific task must be done.
- Joint committees: appointed by both the national assembly and the NCOP.
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There are rules on attendance at committee meetings, including that:
- All political parties must keep attendance records for their members and submit them to the speaker for publication.
- An MP who is a full member of a committee but absent, without party approval, from three or more consecutive meetings may be fined R1,000 for every day absent.
- The committee secretary must submit a report to the speaker every three months on all members who have been absent from three or more consecutive meetings without approval.
"Attendance at meetings is part of an MP's job and should not be taken lightly," Rashaad Alli, executive director of the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG), previously told Africa Check. The PMG is an information service that provides records and documents of all parliamentary committee proceedings.
But Alli added that there are many reasons why MPs might be absent from committee meetings. "They can be ill, busy with party work, studying, attending workshops or conferences, travelling, media work and meeting clashes. This last reason is particularly true for smaller parties who sit on multiple committees as either full or alternate members."
