Government has denied reports that it is planning to reduce civil servants headcount in order to decrease its growing wage bill.
Reports last week indicated that government is planning to lay off more than 30 000 public servants in the next three years as cost-cutting measures.
The reported retrenchments are believed would reduce government salary bill by R20 billion.
But the minister of Public Service and Administration, Ayanda Dlodlo has denied this. She says they are looking at initiatives for employees who are reaching retirement age rather than retrenchments to reduce the huge government wage bill.
Minister Ayanda Dlodlo says they are looking at retirement packages and these will be optional only for those who want to leave their jobs.
The government wage bill is reported to be almost full third of the annual budget at R587 billion. She says there have not been any talks of restructuring nor job cuts in the public sector.
“The last thing that we would have in a climate of a jobless growth is looking at a large scale retrenchment. When you retrench people you make those positions redundant, and what we are looking for as a government is not a retrenchment package for anybody. We are looking at the wage bill as it is currently and we are also looking at issues to bringing in young people in the work environment.”