The extent to which civil servants are in debt has the KwaZulu-Natal government worried, especially as the country battles tough economic times.
|||Durban – The extent to which civil servants are in debt has the KwaZulu-Natal government worried, especially as the country battles tough economic times.
KwaZulu-Natal premier Senzo Mchunu announced on Wednesday in Durban at the opening the annual three-day Provincial Executive Council Lekgotla that the provincial government would have to implement cost cutting measures and he expressed concern that civil servants may also be feeling the economic pinch on a personal level.
Citing a 2007/2008 study that indicated that some 20 percent of the civil service were indebted, Mchunu said it was an issue that government would need to look at.
He said that while there were no immediate figures on how indebted government employees were, the provincial government had already implemented measures to inform employees of the perils of getting into too much debt.
“We think we have some responsibility, but that there may not be enough. We are not sure [of the extent of indebtedness] at the moment. We do need to make that assessment and assist,” Mchunu said.
He said that one way that the provincial government could possibly use to determine how severe the problem was, was simply by examining how many garnishee orders there were in place against provincial government employees.
“There is one thing that we are afraid of and that is if a remarkable number of civil servants get into real debt, we are sure that their productivity will slump and that will affect government,” he said.
A garnishee is a court order that instructs an employer to make deductions from an employee’s salary or wage to settle a debt owed by the employee.
African News Agency