Parliament – There was not a lot more information in the 2017 Budget speech on Wednesday about South Africa’s latest “giant step forward”, but senior government figures certainly seem inspired when talking about the newly agreed minimum wage.
First, in a briefing to the media before the Budget speech, Lungisa Fuzile, director-general of the National Treasury, described the hard-won minimum wage as proof that something “both imaginative and cautious” could be brought into being.
He was answering a question about how Treasury might seek to counter any job losses that resulted from the implementation of the minimum wage. Fuzile was reminded that according to Treasury’s own modelling hundred of thousands of jobs were under threat. He was also asked if this projection was being taken into account at the Gross Domestic product level.
He very elegantly side-stepped the real drift of the question by describing both the level that had been agreed, R20 an hour, and the decision to phase it in as very intelligent. Both of these factors were designed to limit negative or unintended consequences, he added.
For his part, the country’s Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, giving his Budget speech a little while later, described the agreement to implement a minimum wage as a “giant step forward”.
He added that its implementation would require complementary measures to support workers and employers in vulnerable and low-wage sectors, and enhanced assistance to young and unskilled work-seekers.
"We also need to seek progress on social security reform alongside phasing in the minimum wage," he added.