EDITOR – I refer to Duncan Du Bois’s article written under the same heading ‘Less is more to generate real growth’.
I could not agree with him more – less government means more efficiency, less dissatisfaction and greater savings to the burdened taxpayer.
I have done some quick calculations and it would be interesting to see what the real figures might be.
In Durban we have 205 city councillors. The starting salary for them is R400,000 a year, now add on the extra for serving on committees, a favourite pastime for any politician, plus the mayor’s salary and his deputy and their deputies, car allowance, free lunches and suppers, generous pension schemes and all the other hidden costs, so let’s say aggregating this, each of these overworked people have a cost to the ratepayer of R500,000 per annum or about R42,000 per councillor per month. Apparently we have 205 of them, do the maths and each month the salary bill that we, ratepayers, fit is R8,541,666 per month or R102,500,000 per annum.
Now work out how much this is costing ratepayers (and by that I mean those who actually pay rates, which is probably only about 10% of the population of Durban) each year. Would it not be great if the DA could show commitment to lessening the burden by putting a proposal to the municipality to halve the number of councillors at the next meeting of the council? As a matter of fact, I challenge the DA to take the lead on this and set this proposal down for debate.
To command that sort of salary in the real world, R42,000 a month, one would need to have an appropriate degree, work experience and actually work 48 full weeks a year, as opposed to our esteemed representatives who command this salary and get nominated by their parties, not on ability or experience, but rather on their ability to brown nose party seniors and rabble-rousing every five years.
We can do the above exercise again with regards to our nine provincial legislatures, which have between 30 to 80 representatives. If we said on average there are 60 to each province, now these guys really earn at R800,000 per month, and say to round up with all the perks, their cost to the taxpayer is R1,000,000 a shot per month, let’s do the maths:
60 x 9 x R1,000,000 = R540,000,000 per annum.
Add in another 400 members of parliament at a R1,000,000 a shot, and it’s another R400,000,000.
Come on DA, let’s see you guys propose a total reduction on these numbers. It sure will be a vote winner.
