Talking about the remuneration of public officials is always difficult in South Africa, where trust for public institutions is at an all-time low and with good reason.
But the truth is that it is becoming harder to attract and retain excellent people to work in the public sector in South Africa.
This is a real concern in places that are well run, and want to stay well run.
While most of South Africa's municipalities have been run into the ground by incompetent political and administrative leadership, a small number of councils (almost all run by the Democratic Alliance) are still examples of excellence.
Mossel Bay Municipality is certainly among the very best-run municipalities in the whole country.
The uproar in Mossel Bay (Rapport: Kruisverhoor, 20 August 2023) about the payment of Mr Colin Puren is a sad case in point.
Mr Puren is obviously a public servant of the highest quality and if we have the interests of that town in mind, he deserves to be appropriately remunerated for the service he renders.
Senior officials in collapsed municipalities have clearly not earned their salaries and do not deserve them. But that cannot be the case for municipalities which are well run. To attract or keep talented and devoted city officials, councils need to be able to pay them properly.
Treating every official in every town the same, on the same pay scales, is nonsensical.
A better approach for the future of our country would be to give high-performing municipalities that achieve the best results some more leeway in pay scales, while coming down harder on failing towns where governance has collapsed.
So often, our national government seems to be doing it precisely the other way around.
